At first glance at this image, you’d be forgiven for mistaking it as a stunning work of art.
But the image is very much real, and was snapped by photographer Roman Ponča in Chile last year.
NASA has now featured the beautiful photo as its Astronomy Picture of the Day.
The space agency explained: “What is the band of light connecting the ground to the Milky Way? Zodiacal light - a stream of dust that orbits the Sun in the inner Solar System.
“It is most easily seen just before sunrise, where it has been called a false dawn, or just after sunset.
“The origin of zodiacal dust remains a topic of research, but is hypothesized to result from asteroid collisions and comet tails.”
In the image, the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy can be seen arching across the top,while the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way is visible in the far left.
NASA added: “The image is a combination of over 30 exposures taken last July near La Serena among the mountains of Chile.
“During the next two months, zodiacal light can appear quite prominent in northern skies just after sunset.
This isn’t the first time that NASA has featured a shot of the Milky Way as its Astronomy Picture of the Day.
In January, the space agency featured a photo of the Milky Way over Yellowstone National Paak.
It said: “The Milky Way was not created by an evaporating lake. The pool of vivid blue water, about 10 meters across, is known as Silex Spring and is located in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA.
“Steam rises off the spring, heated by a magma chamber deep underneath known as the Yellowstone hotspot.
“The steam blurs the image of Jupiter, making it seem unusually large. Unrelated and far in the distance, the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy rises high overhead, a band lit by billions of stars.”
