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 October 26

                       Reflections of the Ghost Nebula
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Bogdan Jarzyna

   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-years 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.

                    Tomorrow's picture: venusian volcano
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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