See an Eerie Pyramid of Light in This Week's Night Sky

According to National Geographic starting about an hour before sunrise on Saturday, October 1, and lasting the next two weeks, keen skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere can hunt down one of the most elusive astronomical phenomena visible in the sky: the zodiacal light. 

This pyramid-shaped beam of light is easily mistaken for the lights of a far-off city just over the dark horizon in the countryside, and has also been called “false dawn.” But this light is more ethereal; it is caused by sunlight reflecting off cosmic dust between the planets.

Amazing to think that today we’re peering at billions of dust-sized particles that were left behind after the planets formed about five billion years ago.