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what's up for september this month we'll

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step away from the city lights and gaze

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up at our own milky way galaxy

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hello i'm jane houston jones from nasa's

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jet propulsion laboratory in pasadena

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california

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you can easily spot the moon and the

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planets from your own backyard but it

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takes a dark sky to see the spiral arms

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of our own galaxy

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one of the main features of spiral

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galaxies are spiral arms and dark lanes

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of dust and gas which line the edge of

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those spiral arms

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just to the right of jupiter you'll see

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what looks like a cloud but it's really

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a cloud of stars and it's the center of

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our milky way galaxy

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we live two-thirds of the way from the

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center

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when you look at the spiral arm of the

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galaxy you'll notice a dark area

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bisecting the stars

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that dark area is called the great rift

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of our milky way galaxy what it is is

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dark obscuring dust that's blocking the

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starlight

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you don't need a telescope to see the

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milky way but if you do look through a

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telescope you'll see clumps of stars

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star clusters and nebula in much more

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detail although with your own eyes

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you'll be able to see some of the

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features of the milky way galaxy such as

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some of the brighter clusters and gas

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clouds