Astronomy Picture of the Day - The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and Stars

NASA ^ | 7 Sep, 2026 | Image Credit & Copyright: Mark Killion

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: The Pelican Nebula is slowly being transformed. IC 5070 (an official designation) is divided from the larger North America Nebula by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust. The deep featured picture from Utah, USA incorporates 25 hours of exposure and brings out great details of this filamentary dust. The Pelican Nebula receives much study because it is a particularly active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds. The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming the cold gas to hot gas, with the advancing boundary between the two, known as an ionization front, visible in bright orange on the upper right. Particularly dense tentacles of cold gas remain. Millions of years from now, the Pelican Nebula, bounded by dark nebula LDN 935, might no longer be known as the Pelican, as the balance and placement of stars and gas will surely leave something that appears completely different.

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[Red Badger]

Looks more like a raven..........

[No name given]

Wow.

[goodnesswins]

Looks like rabbit to me

[Carry_Okie]

Jackson Pollack writ very large.

[blueunicorn6]

It’s JarJar Binks!

[equaviator]

There’s nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth!

[NavyShoe]

And now for something completely different…

[sgt_lau]

I’ve always had a hard time imagining the whole “gas and dust” description of space. I believe the scientific descriptions, but it’s tough to understand how gas and dust eventually form objects. Please don’t attempt to describe it to me, Ive already read a description.

[null and void]

...a pelican with three buttocks!

[null and void]

Whose tagline is “I see puppies in the clouds”?