Milky way setting behind islet in Grand Gaube

Galilée observed in 1610, through his telescope, that this whitish trail is in fact a region dense with stars, indiscernible to the naked eye. The Milky Way is more precisely a barred spiral galaxy, that is to say that in the middle of the galaxy there is a bar of stars from which four major arms start. The existence of these arms was discovered in 1951 by Edward Mills Purcell and Harold Ewen through radio astronomy measurements. The Solar System is located at the periphery of the galaxy, in one of the spiral arms called Orion arm, about 27,000 light years from the center around which it rotates at a speed of 230 km / s. The center, also called galactic bulge, is swollen by a great density of stars and measures 10,000 light-years in diameter. Moreover, in the heart of the galaxy lies Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole of more than four million solar masses. The whole galaxy is surrounded by a halo, which would consist of stars, gas and dark matter. In Mauritius we are quite lucky to have places like Grand Gaube where nightscape and seascape can be shot together. "La Voie Lactée" as we call it in french is one of the most astonishing night photography that one can shoot with a wide lens.