April 14, 2014
The Moon has changed phase thousands of times since the beginning of the cosmos, but only once did it shine on the night you arrived.
An Unusual Globule in IC 1396
Birthday · April 14, 2014
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed
Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.
Date & occasion only
Change the year
APOD published April 14, 2014. Credit: T. Rector. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Is there a monster in IC 1396? Known to some as the Elephant's Trunk Nebula, parts of gas and dust clouds of this star formation region may appear to take on foreboding forms, some nearly human. The only real monster here, however, is a bright young star too far from Earth to hurt us. Energetic light from this star is eating away the dust of the dark cometary globule near the top of the above image. Jets and winds of particles emitted from this star are also pushing away ambient gas and dust. Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the relatively faint IC 1396 complex covers a much larger region on the sky than shown here, with an apparent width of more than 10 full moons. Tonight: April 15, 2AM EDT - Lunar Eclipse | Times
Image credit: T. Rector