{"id":946237,"date":"2026-10-30T09:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T09:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/946237\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T09:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T09:58:12","slug":"apod-2026-october-30-haunting-the-cepheus-flare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/946237\/","title":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 October 30 \u2013 Haunting the Cepheus Flare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p-md margin-0 media-detail-hero__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tExplanation: <a href=\"https:\/\/exoplanets.nasa.gov\/alien-worlds\/galaxy-of-horrors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spooky<\/a> shapes seem to haunt this dusty expanse, drifting through the night in the royal constellation <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cepheus_(constellation)\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cepheus<\/a>. Of course, <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/image-article\/apod-2021-october-30-a-rorschach-aurora\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the shapes<\/a> are cosmic dust clouds visible in dimly reflected starlight. Far from <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/solar-system\/stories\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">your own neighborhood<\/a>, they lurk above the plane of the Milky Way at the edge of the <a href=\"http:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/0809.4761\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cepheus Flare<\/a> 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/apod\/?date=111031\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ghost Nebula<\/a>. 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/hubble\/science\/science-highlights\/exploring-the-birth-of-stars\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">of star formation<\/a>. With the eerie hue of interstellar dust reflecting bluish light from hot young stars of <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/apod\/?date=210903\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NGC 7023, the Iris Nebula<\/a> stands out against the dark just left of center. <a href=\"https:\/\/app.astrobin.com\/u\/mirko75?i=20obtn\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">In the broad telescopic frame<\/a>, these fertile interstellar dust fields stretch almost six full moons across the sky.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow&#8217;s picture: night on a spooky planet\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Explanation: Spooky shapes seem to haunt this dusty expanse, drifting through the night in the royal constellation Cepheus.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":946238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[407743,64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-946237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-apod","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}