Galactic bridge

Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, appears in this stunning wide angle view as a bridge which seems to connect Paranal Mountain, the VLT site (on the left) with the nearby peak, home of the VISTA survey telescope. The brightest area, crossed by dark lanes corresponds to the central bulge of our galaxy that we see perfectly edge-on. On the right, just above the VISTA telescope, the Andromeda galaxy (M31) is clearly visible as an elongated bright spot. M31 is a giant spiral galaxy, larger than the Milky Way, member of our Local Group and located some 2 million light-years away. Because of the exceptional quality of the sky, stars are still perfectly visible just above the horizon, where clouds typically cover the Pacific Ocean, only 12 km away from the observatory.