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APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Halloween and the Ghost Head Nebula
Explanation: Halloween's origin is ancient and astronomical. Since the fifth century BC, Halloween has been celebrated as a cross-quarter day , a day halfway between an equinox (equal day / equal night) and a solstice (minimum day / maximum night in the northern hemisphere). With our modern calendar , however, the real cross-quarter day will occur next week. Another cross-quarter day is Groundhog's Day . Halloween's modern celebration retains historic roots in dressing to scare away the spirits of the dead. Perhaps a fitting modern tribute to this ancient holiday is the above-pictured Ghost Head Nebula taken with the Hubble Space Telescope . Appearing similar to the icon of a fictional ghost , NGC 2080 is actually a star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud , a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way Galaxy . The Ghost Head Nebula spans about 50 light-years and is shown in representative colors.
| Date | October 31, 2007 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit: Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri ( Observatoire de Paris ) et al., ESA , NASA |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |