Astronomy Picture of the Day -- The Shark Nebula

NASA ^ | September 07, 2015 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: There is no sea on Earth large enough to contain the Shark nebula. This predator apparition poses us no danger, though, as it is composed only of interstellar gas and dust. Dark dust like that featured here is somewhat like cigarette smoke and created in the cool atmospheres of giant stars. After being expelled with gas and gravitationally recondensing, massive stars may carve intricate structures into their birth cloud using their high energy light and fast stellar winds as sculpting tools. The heat they generate evaporates the murky molecular cloud as well as causing ambient hydrogen gas to disperse and glow red. During disintegration, we humans can enjoy imagining these great clouds as common icons, like we do for water clouds on Earth. Including smaller dust nebulae such as Lynds Dark Nebula 1235 and Van den Bergh 149 & 150, the Shark nebula spans about 15 light years and lies about 650 light years away toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus).

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit and Copyright: Maurice Toet]

[SunkenCiv]

The Big One

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[Don Corleone]

interstellar gas and dust.

Sounds like a definition of most political platforms.

[Chode]

Ding Dong... Candy-gram

[lulu16]

Beautiful writing.

[MUDDOG]

It’s so very lonely.

[left that other site]

Yeah, but does it have a frikkin laser beam on its head?

[blueunicorn6]

You know.....if you look at it upside down.....it looks like....an upside down shark nebula.

[Interesting Times]

There is no sea on Earth large enough to contain the Shark nebula.

Did this first appear in My Weekly Reader?"

[MUDDOG]

My favorite paper! (The summer paparback books they sold were excellent too).

[bgill]

Shark? If you say so. It looks just like what the cat hacked up this morning.

Sharknado IV! They came from outer space!

[SunkenCiv]

It is a bit nebulous.

[COBOL2Java]

[Red Badger]

Just in time for Shark Week - The Galactic Edition....................

[Red Badger]

I used to get that every summer when I was a kid!......................

[Red Badger]

You’re gonna need a bigger planet!..................