Explanation:
Why take a picture of just the
Badlands when you can take one that also
shows the spectacular sky above it?
Just such a picture, actually a digital stitched panorama of four images,
was taken in late June near midnight, looking southwest.
In the foreground, the
unusual buttes of the Badlands Wall, part of the
Badlands National Park in
South Dakota,
USA, were momentarily illuminated by flashlight
during a long duration exposure of the background night sky.
The mountain-like buttes
visible are composed of soft rock that show sharp erosion features from wind and water.
The South Dakota Badlands also contain ancient beds rich with easy-to-find fossils.
Some fossils are over 25 million years old and hold clues to the evolutionary origins of the horse and the
saber-toothed tiger.
Bright Jupiter dominates the sky on the left just above the buttes,
while the spectacular
Milky Way Galaxy
runs down the image right.
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