Subj : Daily APOD Report
To   : All
From : Alan Ianson
Date : Mon Aug 28 2023 00:45:30

                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2023 August 28
        A nebula that appears blue in the middle and is surrounded by
    red-glowing gas is featured. Dramatic lanes of dark dust cut through
   the nebula's left side. A group of stars is visible toward the nebula's
      center. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

                     Star Formation in the Pacman Nebula
                   Image Credit & Copyright: Craig Stocks

   Explanation: Look through the cosmic cloud cataloged as NGC 281 and you
   might miss the stars of open cluster IC 1590. Formed within the nebula,
   that cluster's young, massive stars ultimately power the pervasive
   nebular glow. The eye-catching shapes looming in the featured portrait
   of NGC 281 are sculpted dusty columns and dense Bok globules seen in
   silhouette, eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the
   hot cluster stars. If they survive long enough, the dusty structures
   could also be sites of future star formation. Playfully called the
   Pacman Nebula because of its overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000
   light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. This sharp composite
   image was made through narrow-band filters. It combines emission from
   the nebula's hydrogen and oxygen atoms to synthesize red, green, and
   blue colors. The scene spans well over 80 light-years at the estimated
   distance of NGC 281.

                       Tomorrow's picture: spiral webb
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