October 30, 2025
The universe is brighter with you in it. Happy birthday.
Birthday · October 30, 2025
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Selected image source ↗ APOD published October 30, 2025. Credit: Team Ciel Austral. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Read the original APOD for the astronomer’s explanation and full image credits. Its text is preserved in the archive as published.
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Sure, Halloween is an astronomy holiday. But astronomers always enjoy scanning the heavens for spook-tacular galaxies, stars, and nebulae. This favorite is item number 43 from the Beverly Lynds 1962 Catalog of Dark Nebulae, fondly known as the Cosmic Bat nebula. While its visage looks alarmingly like a scary flying mammal, Lynds Dark Nebula 43 is over 12 light-years across. Glowing with eerie light, stars are forming within the dusty interstellar molecular cloud that is dense enough to appear in silhouette against a luminous background of Milky Way stars. Watch out. This Cosmic Bat nebula is a mere 400 light-years distant toward the serpent-bearing constellation Ophiucus.
Image credit: Team Ciel Austral
Explore October 30 in other years · 31 APOD entries, 1995–2025
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