September 26, 2023
You share your birthday with the light of distant galaxies that has been traveling for millions of years just to arrive here, now, alongside...
IC 4592: The Blue Horsehead Reflection Nebula
Birthday · September 26, 2023
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APOD published September 26, 2023. Credit: Antoine & Dalia Grelin. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Do you see the horse's head? What you are seeing is not the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion, but rather a fainter nebula that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging. The main part of the here-imaged molecular cloud complex is reflection nebula IC 4592. Reflection nebulas are made up of very fine dust that normally appears dark but can look quite blue when reflecting the visible light of energetic nearby stars. In this case, the source of much of the reflected light is a star at the eye of the horse. That star is part of Nu Scorpii, one of the brighter star systems toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). A second reflection nebula dubbed IC 4601 is visible surrounding two stars above and to the right of the image center.
Image credit: Antoine & Dalia Grelin