                        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.

                                 2021 July 5

                IC 4592: The Blue Horsehead Reflection Nebula
    Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block, Steward Observatory, University
                                 of Arizona

   Explanation: Do you see the horse's head? What you are seeing is not
   the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion but rather a fainter nebula
   that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging. The main part
   of the here imaged molecular cloud complex is a reflection nebula
   cataloged as IC 4592. Reflection nebulas are actually made up of very
   fine dust that normally appears dark but can look quite blue when
   reflecting the visible light of energetic nearby stars. In this case,
   the source of much of the reflected light is a star at the eye of the
   horse. That star is part of Nu Scorpii, one of the brighter star
   systems toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). A second
   reflection nebula dubbed IC 4601 is visible surrounding two stars to
   the right of the image center.

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