Credit: NASA · NASA material is generally not copyrighted; items carrying a third-party or copyright credit are excluded. The NASA logo and insignia are never reused.
NASA
APOD
Science
APOD
APOD: 2026 October 30 –…
Today’s APOD
Archive
Submissions
Index
Search
Calendar
RSS
Education
About
Discuss
APOD
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.
Haunting the Cepheus Flare
Explanation: Spooky shapes seem to haunt this dusty expanse, drifting through the night in the royal constellation Cepheus. Of course, the shapes are cosmic dust clouds visible in dimly reflected starlight. Far from your own neighborhood, they lurk above the plane of the Milky Way at the edge of the Cepheus Flare molecular cloud complex some 1,200 light-years away. Over 2 light-years across and brighter than most of the other ghostly apparitions, vdB 141 or Sh2-136 is also known as the Ghost Nebula. It lies at lower right in the starry field of view. Inside the Ghost Nebula are reddish telltale signs of dense cores collapsing in the early stages of star formation. With the eerie hue of interstellar dust reflecting bluish light from hot young stars of NGC 7023, the Iris Nebula stands out against the dark just left of center. In the broad telescopic frame, these fertile interstellar dust fields stretch almost six full moons across the sky.
Tomorrow’s picture: night on a spooky planet
Date
October 31, 2026
Credit & Copyright:
Mirko Tondinelli
Authors & editors:
Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Keighley Rockcliffe
A service of:
ASD at NASA / GSFC,NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.
Random APOD Generator
Yesterday’s Image
APOD: 29 October 2026 – The Horns of Venus
Tomorrow’s Image
