This zoom sequence stars with a view of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, then zooms in towards the crowded center of the galaxy, in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius the Archer. Then the scene shifts to an infrared view, which lets us see see through the dusty clouds in this direction and get a close-up view of objects orbiting the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy. The final views show the motion of a newly discovered gas cloud that is falling rapidly towards the central black hole.

Credit: ESO/MPE/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)/VISTA/J. Emerson/Digitized Sky Survey 2

This video was the Astronomy Picture of the Day for July 2, 2012. Thank you to our friend Bill Russell for pointing it out to us.

Of course, you can also see the Milky Way in the night sky: Peer toward the mysterious center of the Milky Way tonight

You can see the Milky Way - the edgewise view into our own galaxy - in the night sky. Here it is as viewed in the night sky of Australia, from EarthSky Facebook friend Erin Cole. Thank you, Erin!