Great Rift (astronomy)

The clouds are an obstruction to millions of the galaxy's stars detected at visible wavelengths, which compose a bright hazy band appearing 30° wide and arching through the night sky.

[2] To the naked eye, the Great Rift appears as a dark lane that divides the bright band of the Milky Way vertically.

[4] Dark zones obscuring the night-sky lighting mass of the bulk of the Milky Way in a dry atmosphere (or at long exposures) were recognized by many ancient civilizations in which a seasonally or regularly dry climate is a frequent feature.

In South America, the Inca gave some patterns of darkness and stars names much as normal stellar constellations were, including a series of animals like llamas, a fox, toad, and others, thought to be drinking from the "great river" (the Milky Way) and seen in silhouette.

[5] The classical Greeks sometimes described the Great Rift as being the path of devastation left by Phaeton, who tried to guide the chariot of Helios (the Sun god) across the sky before losing control, wreaking havoc, and finally being struck down by a lightning bolt of Zeus.

This overexposed photo shows just over half of the inward bulk of the Milky Way (including its centre). As in all real images from our Arm of the galaxy much is obscured by the Great Rift, dark dust clouds that span from Cygnus to Centaurus .
View of the Milky Way and Great Rift from ESO 's Very Large Telescope
Overview of the Milky Way as seen by Gaia, with prominent dark features and star clouds labelled. The Great Rift extends from the far left across the galactic field of stars.
Layout of some Great Rift "constellations" as represented by the Inca
Main dark nebulae of the Solar apex half of the galactic plane , with the Cygnus and Aquila Rifts of the Great Rift at the center right. On the left are the dark clouds of the Radcliffe Wave .