          APOD: 2018 February 14 - In the Heart of the Heart Nebula

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                               2018 February 14
                                      [2]
                      In the Heart of the Heart Nebula
                  Credit & Copyright: Alan [3] Erickson [4]

Explanation: What's that inside the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission
nebula [5]  dubbed IC 1805 [6]  looks, in whole, like a human heart [7] . It's
shape perhaps fitting of the Valentine's Day [8] , this heart glows brightly
in red light emitted by its most prominent element: hydrogen [9] . The red
glow and the larger shape are all created by a small group of stars near the
nebula's center [10] . In the heart of the Heart [11] Nebula are young stars
from the open star cluster Melotte 15 [12]  that are eroding away several
picturesque dust pillars with their energetic light and winds. The open
cluster [13]  of stars contains a few bright stars [14]  nearly 50 times the
mass of our Sun, many dim stars only a fraction of the mass of our Sun, and an
absent microquasar [15] that was expelled millions of years ago. The Heart
Nebula [16]  is located about 7,500 light years [17]  away toward the
constellation [18] of the mythological Queen of Aethiopia (Cassiopeia [19] ).

                      Tomorrow's picture: open space [20]

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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1802/HeartBiColor_Erickson_1961.jpg
  [3] mailto: aerickso @at@ adobe .dot. com
  [4] https://alanerickson.smugmug.com/
  [5] emission_nebulae.html
  [6] ap040917.html
  [7] http://www.vet.cornell.edu/news/FentonCherry/Media/files/structure.html
  [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day
  [9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen
  [10] ap141018.html
  [11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcOxhH8N3Bo
  [12] ap131227.html
  [13] http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=18009
  [14] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006A%26A...456.1121D
  [15] ap040916.html
  [16] ap031022.html
  [17] http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question19.html
  [18] http://modernconstellations.com/constellationhistory.html
  [19] http://messier.seds.org/map/Cas.html
  [20] ap180215.html
  [21] ap180213.html
  [22] archivepix.html
  [23] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [24] lib/aptree.html
  [25] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [26] calendar/allyears.html
  [27] /apod.rss
  [28] lib/edlinks.html
  [29] lib/about_apod.html
  [30] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=180214
  [31] ap180215.html
  [32] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [33] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [34] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [35] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [36] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [37] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [38] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [39] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [40] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [41] http://www.mtu.edu/
