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The Milky Way arches above the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in a photograph taken at Paranal Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert by French astrophotographer Julien Looten. The green and red haze around the scene is airglow from Earth’s upper atmosphere—not part of the galaxy. The sky’s darkness makes the faint glow visible, but the story’s “at risk” framing does not identify a specific local threat, measured change or timeline for Paranal.
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What the photograph shows
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) published Looten’s image on 27 October 2025 under the title “The magic of a pristine sky,” with the credit J. Looten/ESO. It shows the Milky Way stretching over the VLT at Paranal. Three VLT Unit Telescopes stand beneath the galaxy; a fourth is outside the frame to the right, and the smaller VLT Survey Telescope is visible in the right-hand background.
ESO lists the image dimensions as 10,000 × 6,093 pixels. Looten described its personal meaning this way: “this picture has symbolic value for me, as it marked the closing of the night.”
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What are the green and red glows?
They are airglow: faint light produced by chemical processes in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Different excited atoms and molecules produce different colors. The glow is terrestrial, not a cloud, nebula or feature of the Milky Way.
Airglow is extremely faint, so it is noticeable only in some of Earth’s darkest places, including the Atacama. It can appear especially prominent near the horizon; ESO’s background explainer, “Atacama airglow” (6 June 2016), discusses that appearance. Artificial light—even from distant sources—can overwhelm the faint glow.
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What does “at risk” mean for Paranal?
Dark skies are important for astronomical observations and for seeing subtle night-sky features such as airglow. ESO has argued for preserving pristine skies and described Paranal in a 2025 release as among the world’s darkest astronomical sites. That is ESO’s qualitative characterization, not a numerical ranking or measurement presented here.
The Daily Galaxy’s 6 November 2025 story points broadly to urban growth and satellite constellations as pressures on dark skies. But neither that account nor ESO’s image record names a specific development threatening Paranal, gives a local measurement of increasing light pollution, or sets out a timeline for a loss of darkness. The general concern about artificial light is real; an imminent, quantified threat to this particular observatory is not established by those accounts.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the image record does not tell us
ESO’s image description does not identify Looten’s camera, lens, exposure settings or processing workflow. The photograph’s pixel dimensions are metadata, not evidence of the equipment or technique used to make it. No gear list or technical recipe should be inferred from the image alone.
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