                        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 January 25
        An image of a foreboding dark nebula before a red-glowing gas
        background and many bright and colorful stars. Please see the
                 explanation for more detailed information.

                       LDN 1622: The Boogeyman Nebula
                   Image Credit & Copyright: Joshua Carter

   Explanation: To some, the dark shape looks like a mythical boogeyman.
   Scientifically, Lynds' Dark Nebula (LDN) 1622 appears against a faint
   background of glowing hydrogen gas only visible in long telescopic
   exposures of the region. In contrast, the brighter reflection nebula
   vdB 62 is more easily seen just above and to the right of center in the
   featured image. LDN 1622 lies near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy,
   close on the sky to Barnard's Loop, a large cloud surrounding the rich
   complex of emission nebulae found in the Belt and Sword of Orion. With
   swept-back outlines, the obscuring dust of LDN 1622 is thought to lie
   at a similar distance, perhaps 1,500 light-years away. At that
   distance, this 2-degree wide field of view would span about 60
   light-years. Young stars do lie hidden within the dark expanse and have
   been revealed in Spitzer Space Telescope infrared images.

                     Tomorrow's picture: wild and crazy
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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