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Explanation: Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, this cosmic cloud by chance echoes the outline of California on the west coast of the United States. Our own Sun also lies within the Milky Way's Orion Arm, only about 1,500 light-years from the California Nebula. Also known as NGC 1499, the classic emission nebula is around 100 light-years long. It glows with the red light characteristic of hydrogen atoms recombining with long lost electrons, stripped away (ionized) by energetic starlight. In this case, the star most likely providing the energetic starlight is the bright, hot, bluish Xi Persei, just right of the nebula and above picture center. Fittingly, this composite picture was made with images from a telescope in California - the 48-inch (1.2-meter) Samuel Oschin Telescope - taken as a part of the second National Geographic Palomar Observatory Sky Survey.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: emission nebula
Publications with words: emission nebula
See also:
- APOD: 2025 July 21 B Cats Paw Nebula from Webb Space Telescope
- APOD: 2025 July 16 B The Rosette Nebula from DECam
- APOD: 2025 July 5 B Ou4: The Giant Squid Nebula
- APOD: 2025 June 26 B The Seagull Nebula
- NGC 6164: A Dragon s Egg
- APOD: 2025 February 18 B Thors Helmet versus the Seagull
- APOD: 2025 February 11 B The Spider and the Fly