Mystery of Canyonlands Offers Stunning View of Heavens

Canyonlands and Sky — The starry sky appears through False Kiva in Utah's Canyonlands National Park. Astrophotographer Tunc Tezel of The World at Night took this photo from Eastern Utah on May 23, 2012. (Image credit: Tunc Tezel / The World At Night)

The elusive False Kiva in Utah's Canyonlands National Park offered a perfect vantage point for one night sky photographer to capture the stars.

Astrophotographer Tunc Tezel of The World at Night took this beautiful image from Eastern Utah on May 23, 2012.

In the image, the planet Jupiter is visible along with our Milky Way galaxy from inside False Kiva, a human-made stone circle of unknown origin found in a remote area of Canyonlands National Park. The location is so remote that it doesn’t appear on any official maps of the park. The park has stunning mesas, gorges and caves carved from centuries of erosion by the Colorado River and its tributaries.

Editor's note: If you have an amazing skywatching photo you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, please contact SPACE.com managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, sister site to OurAmazingPlanet. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Nina Sen is a frequent contributor to Live Science’s Life’s Little Mysteries series: an exploration and explanation of our world’s phenomena, both natural and man-made. She also writes astronomy photo stories for Live Science's sister site Space.com.

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Window to the Stars: Canyon and Cosmos Dazzle in Photo