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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.

See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

Reflections of the Ghost Nebula

Explanation: Do any shapes seem to jump out at you from this interstellar field of stars and dust? The jeweled expanse, filled with faint, starlight-reflecting clouds, drifts through the night in the royal constellation of Cepheus . Far from your own neighborhood on planet Earth , these ghostly apparitions lurk along the plane of the Milky Way at the edge of the Cepheus Flare molecular cloud complex some 1,200 light-years away. Over two light-year s across and brighter than the other spooky chimeras, VdB 141 or Sh2-136 is also known as the Ghost Nebula , seen at toward the bottom of the featured image . Within the reflection nebula are the telltale signs of dense cores collapsing in the early stages of star formation.

Date October 26, 2020
Credit Image Credit & Copyright: Bogdan Jarzyna
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.