                        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.

                                2026 April 7
   A starfield surrounds a large nebula that is mostly brown and blue and
    has an appearance reminiscent of the head of a horse. This nebula is
    not the more famous Horsehead Nebula. Please see the explanation for
                         more detailed information.

                IC 4592: The Blue Horsehead Reflection Nebula
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Rabeea Alkuwari

   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 reflection nebula IC
   4592. Reflection nebulas are 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 just below the image center. The
   featured picture was taken from Sawda Natheel in Qatar.

                 Jigsaw Nebula: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day
                       Tomorrow's picture: open space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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