Look up, Washington: Milky Way galaxy shines over Memorial Day weekend
The Milky Way could be coming to a sky near you.
The billions of stars comprising our home galaxy should appear especially vibrant in late-May as the band arcs across the night sky. The reason has much to do with the cycle of the moon, but it also has to do with how high in the sky the Milky Way should appear from our perspective here on Earth, specifically in the United States.
Here's everything to know about our Milky Way, including how to see the stunning natural phenomenon.
The Milky Way is our home galaxy with a disc of stars that spans more than 100,000 light-years. Because it appears as a rotating disc curving out from a dense central region, the Milky Way is known as a spiral galaxy.
Our planet itself is located along one of the galaxy's spiral arms, about halfway from the center, according to NASA.
The Milky Way sits in a cosmic neighborhood called the Local Group that includes more than 50 other galaxies. Those galaxies can be as small as a dwarf galaxy with up to only a few billion stars, or as large as Andromeda, our nearest large galactic neighbor.
The Milky Way got its name because from our perspective on Earth, it appears as a faint band of light stretching across the entire sky.
While the Milky Way is generally always visible from Earth, certain times of year are better for stargazers to catch a glimpse of the band of billions of stars comprising our galaxy.
"Milky Way season," when the galaxy's bright center becomes easier to see from Earth, typically runs from February to October, according to Milky Way photography website Capture the Atlas. However, the best time to see the Milky Way in the Northern Hemisphere is from March to September.
And for several days in May, the Milky Way may be even more visible than usual.
The peak days to view the Milky Way will be from Tuesday, May 20, to Friday, May 30, according to science news website LiveScience. That's the period between the last quarter moon and the new moon, when skies should be darker.
Those who live in the Northern Hemisphere, which includes the entire continental United States, could have spectacular views of the Milky Way on clear nights with a new moon.
Typically, the sky is darkest between about midnight and 5 a.m., according to Capture the Atlas.
Stargazers can observe the Milky Way galaxy by looking for the Summer Triangle, "a shape formed by three bright stars" that spans across the Milky Way, according to LiveScience.com.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the Milky Way rises in the southeast, travels across the southern sky and sets in the southwest, according to Weather.com.
Spectators will have the best luck on cloud-free nights and in locations away from city light pollution. DarkSky International maintains a website that lists all designated dark sky communities around the world, including 159 locations in the U.S.
Timing up your viewing experience with a new moon phase will also help so that light reflected off our celestial neighbor doesn't drown out the billions of stars lighting up the Milky Way, astronomers say.
Just like Earth, half of the moon is always illuminated by the sun, while the other half remains dark. A new moon represents the start of a new lunar cycle, when the illuminated side of Earth's natural satellite is facing away from our planet, rendering it effectively invisible to us.
As the moon orbits around Earth and Earth orbits around the sun, the amount of sunlight that reflects off the moon and travels to our eyes changes every day until the moon appears as full.
The next new moon is May 26, according to the website TimeAndDate.
Cloud cover forecasts from the National Weather Service are a mixed bag for viewing the night sky on May 26, the day of the new moon.
At 11 p.m. on May 26, cloud cover in central and eastern Washington is predicted to range from 18% to 31%, according to the NWS. The lower the percentage, the clearer the sky will be. These percentages are considered "good" viewing conditions by Space.com.
But the picture gets muddier moving west. In Seattle, cloud cover is predicted to be about 66%, which approaches the "poor" range for seeing the sky, according to Space.com.
The NWS shows improved cloud cover conditions across western Washington on May 27.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Is Milky Way visible from Washington? How to watch on Memorial Day
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