Image of the Day: A Spectacular 'Dark Nebula' of the Milky Way
The silhouette of a Lynd's dark nebula appears against a faint background of glowing hydrogen gas only easily seen in long telescopic exposures of the region. 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. But the obscuring dust of LDN 1622 is thought to be much closer than Orion's more famous nebulae, perhaps only 500 light-years away.
Image Credit: Jean-Charles Cuillandre (CFHT) & Giovanni Anselmi (Coelum); "Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope / Coelum"
Comments
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Your link to the Sword of Orion takes you to the Wikipedia entry on a dodgy episode of Dr. Who by the same name. Nice one! Editor's note: Ruth, we use an industry-standard service called Zemanta that creates the links you find in our posts. Occasionally, they get it wrong; just like Google Maps.
Posted by: Ruth Mc | September 24, 2012 at 10:12 AM
Does anyone else see a hooded, cloaked figure that's mounted on a giant dark-forked-tongued stead, and holding a lantern in the other hand?
Because I do and it looks epic.
Posted by: Nerdette | September 29, 2012 at 01:10 PM