Explanation:
The silhouette of an intriguing
dark nebula
inhabits this cosmic scene, based on images from the
Palomar
Observatory Sky Survey.
Lynds' Dark Nebula
(LDN) 1622 appears against a faint background
of glowing hydrogen gas only easily seen in long telescopic
exposures of the region.
LDN 1622 lies near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy,
close on the sky to
Barnard's
Loop - a large cloud surrounding the rich
complex of emission nebulae found
in the Belt and Sword
of Orion.
But the obscuring dust of LDN 1622 is thought to be much closer
than Orion's more famous nebulae, perhaps only 500 light-years away.
At that distance, this 1 degree wide field of view
would span less than 10 light-years.
