                        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 November 23

                      Along the Taurus Molecular Cloud
               Image Credit & Copyright: Yuexiao Shen, Joe Hua

   Explanation: The cosmic brush of star formation composed this
   interstellar canvas of emission, dust, and dark nebulae. A 5 degree
   wide telescopic mosaic, it frames a region found north of bright star
   Aldebaran on the sky, at an inner wall of the local bubble along the
   Taurus molecular cloud. At lower left, emission cataloged as Sh2-239
   shows signs of embedded young stellar objects. The region's Herbig-Haro
   objects, nebulosities associated with newly born stars, are marked by
   tell-tale reddish jets of shocked hydrogen gas. Above and right T
   Tauri, the prototype of the class of T Tauri variable stars, is next to
   a yellowish nebula historically known as Hind's Variable Nebula (NGC
   1555). T Tauri stars are now generally recognized as young, less than a
   few million years old, sun-like stars still in the early stages of
   formation.

                     Tomorrow's picture: Stereo Jupiter
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