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APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
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NGC 281: Starless with Stars
Explanation: In visible light the stars have been removed from this narrow-band image of NGC 281 , a star forming region some 10,000 light-years away toward the constellation Cassiopeia. Stars were digitally added back to the resulting starless image though. But instead of using visible light image data, the stars were added with X-ray data (in purple) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and infrared data (in red) from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The merged multiwavelength view reveals a multitude of stars in the region's embedded star cluster IC 1590 . The young stars are normally hidden in visible light images by the natal cloud's gas and obscuring dust. Also known to backyard astro-imagers as the Pacman Nebula for its overall appearance in visible light, NGC 281 is about 80 light-years across.
| Date | November 19, 2021 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Image Credit & Copyright: Wido Oerlemans - X-ray: Chandra , Infrared: Spitzer |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |