December 17, 2019
The constellations may be old, but the person celebrating beneath them is gloriously new by cosmic standards.
The Horsehead Nebula
Birthday · December 17, 2019
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APOD published December 17, 2019. Credit: Mark Hanson & Martin Pugh, SSRO, PROMPT, CTIO, NSF. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud by chance has assumed this recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is some 1,500 light-years distant, embedded in the vast Orion cloud complex. About five light-years "tall", the dark cloud is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against the glowing red emission nebula IC 434. Stars are forming within the dark cloud. Contrasting blue reflection nebula NGC 2023, surrounding a hot, young star, is at the lower left of the full image. The featured gorgeous color image combines both narrowband and broadband images recorded using several different telescopes.
Image credit: Mark Hanson & Martin Pugh, SSRO, PROMPT, CTIO, NSF