{"id":532315,"date":"2026-07-04T06:28:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T06:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/532315\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T06:28:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T06:28:21","slug":"the-sky-today-on-friday-july-3-glimpse-the-milky-ways-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/532315\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on\u00a0Friday, July 3: Glimpse the Milky Way\u2019s center"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe center of the Milky Way stands above the southern horizon late at night in early July, just above the Teapot asterism in Sagittarius.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1193\" height=\"868\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07032026.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"A simulated night sky looking south on July 3, 2026 at 11:30 P.M. A small circular target indicator marks an unnamed object embedded in the faint glow of the Milky Way near the center of the frame. The bright orange-red star Antares is visible to the right, and the dense star clouds of the Milky Way stretch across the left side of the image.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tLook south late at night to find the location of the Milky Way\u2019s center, marked with the crosshairs, rising above the spout of Sagittarius\u2019 Teapot asterism. Credit: Stellarium\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-this-week-from-june-26-to-july-3-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">July 2: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-thursday-july-2-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The King\u2019s wizard<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Have you ever wondered where the center of the Milky Way is located in the sky? You can spot it late tonight, when it stands above the southern horizon.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shortly before midnight, face south and look for the bright orange-red star Antares, which marks the heart of Scorpius the Scorpion. To its left is the Teapot asterism in Sagittarius, with its spout facing to the right and handle to the left. Find the tip of the spout \u2014 marked by the 3rd-magnitude star Alnasl (Gamma [\u03b3] Sagittarii) \u2014 and glance about 4.5\u00b0 to its upper right (northwest). That\u2019s the location of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you\u2019ve got a dark sky and dark-adapted eyes, you may be able to pick out the soft glow of the Milky Way\u2019s plane, which consists of numerous stars whose light combines to create a stripe of diffuse light reaching up from the horizon from lower right to upper left. You may also notice a dark swath cutting through it \u2014 this is dust along the plane of our galaxy, which blocks the light of the many stars behind it. Because the Milky Way is a relatively flattened disk-shaped spiral, we see its plane as a stripe across our sky. Imagine turning a plate on its side and seeing only the edge \u2014 that\u2019s what you\u2019re seeing here.<\/p>\n<p>Sunrise: 5:36 A.M.<br \/>Sunset: 8:32 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise: 10:57 P.M.<br \/>Moonset: 8:57 A.M.<br \/>Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (85%)<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The center of the Milky Way stands above the southern horizon late at night&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}