October 30, 2010
You share your birthday with the light of distant galaxies that has been traveling for millions of years just to arrive here, now, alongside...
Ghost of the Cepheus Flare
Birthday · October 30, 2010
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 October 30, 2010. Credit: Stephen Leshin. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Spooky shapes seem to haunt this starry expanse, drifting through the night in the royal constellation Cepheus. Of course, the shapes are cosmic dust clouds faintly visible in dimly reflected starlight. Far from your own neighborhood on planet Earth, they lurk at the edge of the Cepheus Flare molecular cloud complex some 1,200 light-years away. Over 2 light-years across the ghostly nebula known as vdB 141 or Sh2-136 is near the center of the field. The core of the dark cloud on the right is collapsing and is likely a binary star system in the early stages of formation.
Image credit: Stephen Leshin