Reflections of the Ghost Nebula

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2020 October 26

Explanation: Do any shapes seem to jump out at you from this interstellar field of stars and dust? The jeweled expanse, filled with faint, starlight-reflecting
clouds, drifts through the night in the royal constellation of Cepheus. Far from your own neighborhood on planet Earth, these ghostly apparitions lurk along the
plane of the Milky Way at the
edge of the Cepheus Flare
molecular cloud complex some 1,200 light-years away. Over two light-years across and brighter than the other spooky chimeras, VdB 141 or Sh2-136 is also known as the
Ghost
Nebula, seen at toward the bottom of the featured image. Within the reflection nebula are the telltale signs of dense cores
collapsing
in the early
stages of star formation.

Source: apod.nasa.gov