April 1, 2026
On the day you arrived, the Earth was spinning at a thousand miles per hour, orbiting the Sun at sixty-seven thousand.
The Claw and Bubble Nebulae
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APOD published April 1, 2026. Credit: Richard Whitehead Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What unexpected things do you see when you look up at the night sky? Today’s image resembles an abstract painting, with large swaths of color strewn across a cosmic canvas seemingly without design. Despite the image's abstract nature, the human mind finds patterns, identifying a large claw reaching up towards a floating bubble. Embedded within these seemingly random structures are the physical laws that govern how light and matter interact. The Claw (Sh2-157) and Bubble (NGC 7635) Nebulae glow colors that are mapped to the yellow and blue shown, indicating the presence of hydrogen and oxygen ionized by the intense light emitted from stars several times the mass of the Sun. This image depicts both the chaos and structure of astronomical processes, showing that a common thread between art and science is to look for the unexpected.
Image credit: Richard Whitehead Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMBC CSST, CRESST II)