APOD 1.1



A Tale of Two Hemispheres (July 30, 2011)

This photograph brings to mind the question: what on Earth is that?  For starters, it's not on Earth; it's around Earth.  This is a photograph of the ecliptic plane.
As it turns out, this is a 'sandwich' of two different pictures: one taken in the northern hemisphere, and the other in the southern hemisphere.  The horizon lines were met at the middle, and edited together.  The faint S-shape that extends accross the picture is sunlight scattered by dust that is along the solar system's ecliptic plane.