The Milky Way's dusty galaxy heart has a super-strange glow

Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular images of the night sky. As a European Southern Observatory Photo Ambassador and member of The World At Night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, he specializes in astronomical "Skyscapes" that connect both Earth and the night sky.

The Milky Way's dusty heart glows eerily in a new high-resolution image from Portugal.

Photographer Miguel Claro captured a wide, deep-sky view of the Milky Way at the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, focusing on the dark heart of our home galaxy and the glowing gas clouds in that region, known as nebulas.

"Besides showing a background completely full of stars and immersed in cosmic dust, we can easily recognize many well-known deep sky objects," Claro wrote on his website. Examples include the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) and the Prawn Nebula (IC4628). There are many more objects visible besides.

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