{"id":838056,"date":"2026-07-31T11:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T11:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/838056\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T11:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T11:42:16","slug":"apod-2026-july-31-ngc-4372-and-the-dark-doodad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/838056\/","title":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 July 31 \u2013 NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad"},"content":{"rendered":"

APOD: 2026 July 31 \u2013 NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad<\/p>\n

Discover the cosmos!<\/a>
\nEach day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.\n<\/p>\n

2026 July 31
\n

\n\"See<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad
Image Credit &
\nCopyright<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Alessandro Cipolat Bares<\/a><\/p>\n

Explanation: <\/p>\n

The Dark Doodad Nebula drifts
\nthrough southern skies<\/a>,
\na tantalizing target for binoculars toward the small constellation
\nMusca<\/a>, The Fly.<\/p>\n

A dusty interstellar cloud, it’s seen against
\nrich starfields just south of the Coalsack Nebula and the Southern Cross.<\/p>\n

Stretching for about 3 degrees across this telescopic field of view,
\nthe Dark Doodad<\/a>
\nis punctuated near its southern tip (upper right) by yellowish
\nglobular star cluster
\nNGC 4372<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course NGC 4372 roams the halo of our
\nMilky Way<\/a>
\ngalaxy, a background object some 20,000 light-years away and only
\nby chance along our line-of-sight to the Dark Doodad.<\/p>\n

About 700 light-years distant and over 30 light-years long,
\nthe Dark Doodad’s well defined silhouette belongs to the
\npotentially<\/a> star-forming
\nMusca molecular cloud<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The dusty Dark Doodad’s delightfully alliterative moniker was first coined by
\nastro-imager and writer<\/a>
\nDennis di Cicco in 1986 while
\nobserving Comet Halley from the Australian outback.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow’s picture: pixels in space<\/a> <\/p>\n

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\n Authors & editors:
\nRobert Nemiroff<\/a>
\n(MTU<\/a>) &<\/p>\n

Jerry Bonnell (UMCP<\/a>)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn
\nSpecific rights apply<\/a>.
NASA Web Privacy<\/a>,
\nAccessibility<\/a>,
\nNotices<\/a>;
A service of:
\nASD<\/a> at
\nNASA<\/a> \/
\nGSFC<\/a>,
\n
NASA Science Activation<\/a>
\n
& Michigan Tech. U.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 July 31 \u2013 NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad Discover the cosmos! Each day a different…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":838057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,292164,95263,94415,292163,292165,292162,66,306],"class_list":["post-838056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dark-nebula","tag-globular-cluster","tag-molecular-cloud","tag-mu8","tag-musca-dark-cloud","tag-ngc4372","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}