Astronomy Picture of the Day - Stars and Dust in the Pacman Nebula

By Free Republic | Created at 2024-11-18 21:13:03 | Updated at 2024-11-18 23:33:20 2 hours ago

Astronomy Picture of the Day - Stars and Dust in the Pacman Nebula
NASA ^ | 18 Nov, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Malcolm Loro

Posted on 11/18/2024 1:10:36 PM PST by MtnClimber

Explanation: Stars can create huge and intricate dust sculptures from the dense and dark molecular clouds from which they are born. The tools the stars use to carve their detailed works are high energy light and fast stellar winds. The heat they generate evaporates the dark molecular dust as well as causing ambient hydrogen gas to disperse and glow. Pictured here, a new open cluster of stars designated IC 1590 is nearing completion around the intricate interstellar dust structures in the emission nebula NGC 281, dubbed the Pac-man Nebula because of its overall shape. The dust cloud just above center is classified as a Bok Globule as it may gravitationally collapse and form a star -- or stars. The Pacman Nebula lies about 10,000 light years away toward the constellation of Cassiopeia.

TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

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1 posted on 11/18/2024 1:10:36 PM PST by MtnClimber

To: MtnClimber

2 posted on 11/18/2024 1:10:59 PM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)

To: 21stCenturion; 21twelve; 4everontheRight; A Navy Vet; abb; AFB-XYZ; AFPhys; Agatsu77; ...

Pinging the APOD list

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3 posted on 11/18/2024 1:11:50 PM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)

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