{"id":629079,"date":"2026-10-13T06:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T06:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/629079\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T06:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T06:58:11","slug":"apod-2026-october-13-desert-stairway-to-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/629079\/","title":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 October 13 &#8211; Desert Stairway to Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p-md margin-0 media-detail-hero__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tExplanation: This stairway in Chile brings you only a little bit closer to heaven. But ooh, the sky above it <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Ly6ZhQVnVow\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">makes you wonder<\/a>. For example, you may wonder about the dark lane of our own <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/resource\/the-milky-way-galaxy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Milky Way galaxy<\/a> rising behind the expansive <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/o5JfmFSBDgE\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atacama Desert<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chile\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chile<\/a>, the band of <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/image-article\/apod-2014-september-11-zodiacal-light-before-dawn\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">zodiacal light<\/a> on the upper left, the green and red <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/image-article\/apod-2019-february-3-an-airglow-fan-from-lake-to-sky\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">airglow<\/a> just above the horizon, the star <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spica\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spica<\/a> in the zodiacal light stripe, and, at the very top on the right, the <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/image-article\/apod-2010-september-3-the-small-cloud-of-magellan\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Small Magellanic Cloud<\/a> galaxy. The Desert Staircase sculpture is in the foreground, and this image was timed to catch the picturesque peering perch just in front of the near-<a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/image-article\/apod-2021-august-15-perseid-rain\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">vertical Milky Way band<\/a>. Upon <a href=\"https:\/\/static.boredpanda.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/funny-dog-nose-closeups-30__700.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">close inspection<\/a> of the horizon you can find, left to right, some <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Andes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Andes<\/a> Mountains, the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/-snTWaT1RVk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Licancabur volcano<\/a>, and the town lights of <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/3xvnQitpPeU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Pedro de Atacama<\/a>. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/julienlooten\/55575540456\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">featured wide-angle composite<\/a> was captured in July 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow&#8217;s picture: open space\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Explanation: This stairway in Chile brings you only a little bit closer to heaven. But ooh, the sky&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[271739,111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-629079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-apod","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}