{"id":553486,"date":"2026-07-31T18:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T18:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/553486\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T18:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T18:47:09","slug":"apod-2026-july-31-ngc-4372-and-the-dark-doodad-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/553486\/","title":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 July 31 \u2013 NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p-md margin-0 media-detail-hero__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tExplanation: The Dark Doodad Nebula drifts <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/fap\/ap210101.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">through southern skies<\/a>, a tantalizing target for binoculars toward the small constellation <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Musca\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Musca<\/a>, The Fly. A dusty interstellar cloud, it&#8217;s seen against rich starfields just south of the Coalsack Nebula and the Southern Cross. Stretching for about 3 degrees across this telescopic field of view, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dark_Doodad_Nebula\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Dark Doodad<\/a> is punctuated near its southern tip (upper right) by yellowish globular star cluster <a href=\"http:\/\/spider.seds.org\/spider\/MWGC\/n4372.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NGC 4372<\/a>. Of course NGC 4372 roams the halo of our <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/resource\/the-milky-way-galaxy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Milky Way<\/a> galaxy, a background object some 20,000 light-years away and only by chance along our line-of-sight to the Dark Doodad. About 700 light-years distant and over 30 light-years long, the Dark Doodad&#8217;s well defined silhouette belongs to the <a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/1507.03742\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">potentially<\/a> star-forming <a href=\"https:\/\/ui.adsabs.harvard.edu\/abs\/2024A%26A...687L...9E\/abstract\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Musca molecular cloud<\/a>. The dusty Dark Doodad&#8217;s delightfully alliterative moniker was first coined by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.minorplanetcenter.net\/db_search\/show_object?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;object_id=dicicco\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">astro-imager and writer<\/a> Dennis di Cicco in 1986 while observing Comet Halley from the Australian outback.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow&#8217;s picture: buck and belt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Explanation: The Dark Doodad Nebula drifts through southern skies, a tantalizing target for binoculars toward the small constellation&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[271739,111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-553486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-apod","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}