Looking for the perfect Valentine's Day gift? Some deep-sky gems come stargazers' way this week, just ahead of the romantic holiday, thanks to Earth's moon pointing the way.

A pyramid-shaped nimbus of light filling the sky, zodiacal light is caused by sunlight reflecting off the cosmic dust between the planets. The best time to catch this ghostly light is about an hour after sunset, when looking toward the western horizon from the dark countryside.

How did interplanetary space become dusty enough to diffuse sunlight and set the sky aglow? The celestial phenomenon results from the reflection of billions of dust-size particles left behind in interplanetary space after the planets formed around the sun some 4.6 billion years ago.

Sparkling Spica will appear