Starship Asterisk*

Dark Nebulas across Taurus

Explanation: Sometimes even the dark dust of interstellar space has a serene beauty. One such place occurs toward the constellation of Taurus. The filaments featured here can be found on the sky between the Pleiades star cluster and the California Nebula. This dust is not known not for its bright glow but for its absorption and opaqueness. Several bright stars are visible with their blue light seen reflecting off the brown dust. Other stars appear unusually red as their light barely peaks through a column of dark dust, with red the color that remains after the blue is scattered away. Yet other stars are behind dust pillars so thick they are not visible here. Although appearing serene, the scene is actually an ongoing loop of tumult and rebirth. This is because massive enough knots of gas and dust will gravitationally collapse to form new stars -- stars that both create new dust in their atmospheres and destroy old dust with their energetic light and winds.

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It might of been better to have saved this one for Halloween. There's lots of ghouls and demons and witches in this pic along with spooky eyes in the dark.

I think the caption should use "peek" rather than "peak", although even that is a bit metaphorical (which is fine, if you want ... more literally, we're the ones doing the "peeking", the starlight is barely "penetrating", or "passing" through the dust).

I'm glad to hear that some would find this image serene. I will now quit apologizing for the dust accumulation in my house, which in places very much resembles this image.

I was looking for a bit more material on the statement that stars destroy dust. A lovely summary of some findings is here:
http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/HERSCHELD ... rschel.pdf.

MarkBour wrote: ↑Tue Jun 26, 2018 3:43 pm

Toogie wrote: ↑Tue Jun 26, 2018 1:05 pm
It might of been better to have saved this one for Halloween. There's lots of ghouls and demons and witches in this pic along with spooky eyes in the dark.

I think the caption should use "peek" rather than "peak", although even that is a bit metaphorical (which is fine, if you want ... more literally, we're the ones doing the "peeking", the starlight is barely "penetrating", or "passing" through the dust).

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https://www.etymonline.com/word/peek

peek (v.) late 14c., piken "look quickly and slyly," of unknown origin. The words peek, keek, and peep all were used with more or less the same meaning 14c.-15c.; perhaps the ultimate source was Middle Dutch kieken.
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peekaboo (n.) also peek-a-boo, as a children's game attested from 1590s; as an adjective meaning "see-through, open," it dates from 1895. From peek (v.) + boo.
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boo (interj.) early 15c., boh, "A combination of consonant and vowel especially fitted to produce a loud and startling sound" [OED, which compares Latin boare, Greek boaein "to cry aloud, roar, shout"]; as an expression of disapproval, 1884 (n.); hence, the verb meaning "shower (someone) with boos" (1885). Booing was common late 19c. among London theater audiences and at British political events; in Italy, Parma opera-goers were notorious boo-birds. But the custom seems to have been little-known in America before c. 1910. To say boo "open one's mouth, speak," originally was to say boo to a goose.
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https://www.etymonline.com/word/peak

peak (v.) 1570s, "to rise in a peak," from peak (n.). Figurative meaning "reach highest point" first recorded 1958.
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peak (n.) "pointed top," 1520s, variant of pike (n.4) "sharp point." Meaning "top of a mountain" first recorded 1630s, though pike was used in this sense c. 1400. Figurative sense is 1784. Meaning "point formed by hair on the forehead" is from 1833. According to OED, The Peak in Derbyshire is older than the word for "mountaintop;" compare Old English Peaclond, for the district, Pecsaetan, for the people who settled there, Peaces ærs for Peak Cavern; sometimes said to be a reference to an elf-denizen Peac "Puck."
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MarkBour wrote: ↑Tue Jun 26, 2018 3:43 pm I think the caption should use "peek" rather than "peak",

Yes. This change has now been made on the main NASA APOD. Thank you!

Great detail...

:---[===] *

This looks like as good a place as any to point out a typo or editing error, so ...

This dust is not known not for its bright glow

... would be the strangest double negative I've ever seen if it were intentional.

Thanks for the daily dose of amazing star-stuff.