The gibbous Moon passes across a special spot tonight. It lines up opposite the center of the Milky Way Galaxy – the galactic anti-center. In that direction, we’re looking toward the rim of the galaxy’s disk. The rim is about 25,000 light-years away, with intergalactic space beyond.

The center of the galaxy is in Sagittarius. When we look in that direction we stare into thick clouds of stars, along with dark clouds of dust – places where more stars are being born.

But when we look in the opposite direction the view is much less impressive. There aren’t as many stars or dust clouds. And the stars thin out as you get closer to the rim.

Beyond that, we’re looking into the galaxy’s “halo” – a region that extends hundreds of thousands of light-years into space. It contains a few giant star clusters, and a smattering of individual stars. Almost all of them are ancient – dating to the earliest days of the Milky Way itself.

And beyond the halo, there’s not much at all – some wisps of gas, and an occasional star or free-ranging planet. It’s millions of light-years to the next galaxy – through the vastness of intergalactic space.

The closest star to the anticenter is Elnath, the second-brightest star of Taurus. It marks the tip of one of the bull’s horns. It’s just above the Moon at nightfall. The brilliant planet Jupiter and the star Aldebaran – the bull’s eye – stand farther to the right or upper right of the Moon.

Script by Damond Benningfield