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Credit & Copyright: Thomas Lelu
Explanation:
Spooky shapes seem to haunt this
jeweled 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 along the
plane of the Milky Way at the
edge of the Cepheus Flare
molecular cloud complex some 1,200 light-years away.
Over 2 light-years across and brighter than the other ghostly
apparitions, vdB 141 or Sh2-136 is also known as the
Ghost
Nebula, seen at the right of the starry field of view.
Within the nebula are the telltale signs of dense cores
collapsing
in the early
stages of star formation.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: molecular cloud - star formation
Publications with words: molecular cloud - star formation
See also:
- APOD: 2026 April 13 Á NGC 602 and Beyond
- APOD: 2026 April 5 Á NGC 3310: A Starburst Spiral Galaxy
- APOD: 2026 March 17 Á The Tadpoles of IC 410
- NGC 1333: Stellar Nursery in Perseus
- APOD: 2025 December 28 Á NGC 1898: Globular Cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud
- A Dark Seahorse in Cepheus
- NGC 253: Dusty Island Universe