January 31, 2025
Light takes eight minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth. It took the universe 13.8 billion years to make you.
The Variable Nebula NGC 2261
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APOD published January 31, 2025. Credit: Tommy Lease. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
The interstellar cloud of dust and gas captured in this sharp telescopic snapshot is seen to change its appearance noticeably over periods as short as a few weeks. Discovered over 200 years ago and cataloged as NGC 2261, bright star R Monocerotis lies at the tip of the fan-shaped nebula. About one light-year across and 2500 light-years away, NGC 2261 was studied early last century by astronomer Edwin Hubble and the mysterious cosmic cloud is now more famous as Hubble's Variable Nebula. So what makes Hubble's nebula vary? NGC 2261 is composed of a dusty reflection nebula fanning out from the star R Monocerotis. The leading variability explanation holds that dense knots of obscuring dust pass close to R Mon and cast moving shadows across the dust clouds in the rest of Hubble's Variable Nebula.
Image credit: Tommy Lease