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NGC 6888: The Crescent Nebula

November 28, 2025

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Selected image source ↗ APOD published November 28, 2025. Credit: Greg Bass. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

Behind the original result

NGC 6888: The Crescent Nebula

Original APOD · November 28, 2025 ↗

Read the original APOD for the astronomer’s explanation and full image credits. Its text is preserved in the archive as published.

Read the archived explanation

NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is a about 25 light-years across, a cosmic bubble blown by winds from its central, massive star. This deep telescopic image includes narrowband image data, to isolate light from hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The oxygen atoms produce the blue-green hue that seems to enshroud the nebula's detailed folds and filaments. Visible within the nebula, NGC 6888's central star is classified as a Wolf-Rayet star (WR 136). The star is shedding its outer envelope in a strong stellar wind, ejecting the equivalent of the Sun's mass every 10,000 years. In fact, the Crescent Nebula's complex structures are likely the result of this strong wind interacting with material ejected in an earlier phase. Burning fuel at a prodigious rate and near the end of its stellar life, this star should ultimately go out with a bang in a spectacular supernova explosion. Found in the nebula rich constellation Cygnus, NGC 6888 is about 5,000 light-years away.

Image credit: Greg Bass

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