Astronomy Picture of the Day - Desert Stairway to Heaven

Explanation: This stairway in Chile brings you only a little bit closer to heaven. But ooh, the sky above it makes you wonder. For example, you may wonder about the dark lane of our own Milky Way galaxy rising behind the expansive Atacama Desert in Chile, the band of zodiacal light on the upper left, the green and red airglow just above the horizon, the star Spica in the zodiacal light stripe, and, at the very top on the right, the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy. The Desert Staircase sculpture is in the foreground, and this image was timed to catch...