Milky Way: 15 Places In The U.S. For The Best Views As Galaxy Peaks

Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The core of the Milky Way in Sagittarius low in the south over the Frenchman River valley at ...

[+] Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, a Dark Sky Preserve. (Photo by: Alan Dyer/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Step outside on a clear, moonless night, and you may catch a hazy ark of light stretching from horizon to horizon—the spiral arms of our own Milky Way galaxy. Good luck with that.

With light pollution getting worse with every passing year, most people in North America now have zero chance of ever seeing the Milky Way unless they make a trip to a dark sky. The Milky Way is our home galaxy home to 100-400 billion stars (no one is quite sure how many). It’s a spiral galaxy estimated to be about 13.

6 billion years old. It's 100,000 light-years across. Forbes Northern Lights: 20 Places In The U.

S. For The Best Views By Jamie Carter Arc Of Light Since we’re in its outskirts—around 26,000 light-years from its center—it's impossible to get a face-on view of it. Instead, we see it as an arc of light across the night sky.

It's one of the most beautiful sights in nature, but it requires a dark sky and dark-adapting your eyes for about 10-20 minutes. Galaxy-gaze in the week before the new moon, when post-sunset skies are darkest, which means July 28-August 7; August 26-September 6, and September 24-October 5. Milky Way over Big Bend National Park, Texas.