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.

                                2020 July 28

                        NGC 6188: The Dragons of Ara
               Image Credit & Copyright: Ariel L. Cappelletti

   Explanation: Dark shapes with bright edges winging their way through
   dusty NGC 6188 are tens of light-years long. The emission nebula is
   found near the edge of an otherwise dark and large molecular cloud in
   the southern constellation Ara, about 4,000 light-years away. Born in
   that region only a few million years ago, the massive young stars of
   the embedded Ara OB1 association sculpt the fantastic shapes and power
   the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation.
   The recent star formation itself was likely triggered by winds and
   supernova explosions, from previous generations of massive stars, that
   swept up and compressed the molecular gas. The featured image
   accumulated over 10 hours through a backyard telescope in Córdoba,
   Argentina and was false-colored using the Hubble palette highlighting
   emission from sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms in red, green, and
   blue hues. The field of view spans about four full Moons, corresponding
   to about 150 light years at the estimated distance of NGC 6188.

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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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