Discover the cosmosEach day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Explanation:The Pelican Nebula is slowly being transformed.
IC 5070 is divided from the larger North America Nebulaby amolecular cloudfilled with darkdust.
The deepfeatured picturefrom Utah,USAincorporates 25 hours of exposure and brings out great details of thisfilamentary dust.
ThePelicanNebula receives much study because it is a particularly active mix ofstarformation and evolving gas clouds.
The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming the cold gas to hot gas, with theadvancing boundarybetween the two, known as anionization front, visible in bright orange on the upper right.
Particularly densetentaclesof cold gas remain.
Millions of years from now, the PelicanNebula, bounded by dark nebulaLDN 935, might no longer be known as the Pelican, as thebalance and placement of stars and gaswill surely leave something that appearscompletely different.
APOD’s main site ismoving:Fromapod.nasa.govtoscience.nasa.gov/apod Tomorrow’s picture:geometric Saturn