On the Chajnantor plateau in Chile, home of the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), the sky is so dark that the famous and extremely difficult to observe gegenschein (or "countershine") is sometimes visible. This is a faint brightening of the night sky in the region of the ecliptic directly opposite the Sun, caused by reflection of sunlight by interplanetary dust in the Solar System.

On 8 June 1918, amateur astronomer Alice Grace Cook spotted a “strange star, twinkling violently and changing colours rapidly.” Why was this so remarkable? Read on. By Kate Moore & Bill Barton FRAS
#Astronomy #Gegenschein #NovaAquilae

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