Here’s your nature porn for the day: a long exposure of the night sky over the aptly named Very Large Telescope array in Chile.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/36154212]

Dude, that’s what’s under, or rather over, all the light and air pollution in the sky. Short of moving to the middle of a 40,000-square-mile desert, of course, we’re never going to get that — but it’s kind of staggering that we only see like 0.00000000001 percent of what’s up there.

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.