                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
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                               2023 February 4

                   NGC 2626 along the Vela Molecular Ridge
             Image Credit & Copyright: Mike Selby & Mark Hanson

   Explanation: Centered in this colorful cosmic canvas, NGC 2626 is a
   beautiful, bright, blue reflection nebula in the southern Milky Way.
   Next to an obscuring dust cloud and surrounded by reddish hydrogen
   emission from large H II region RCW 27 it lies within a complex of
   dusty molecular clouds known as the Vela Molecular Ridge. NGC 2626 is
   itself a cloud of interstellar dust reflecting blue light from the
   young hot embedded star visible within the nebula. But astronomical
   explorations reveal many other young stars and associated nebulae in
   the star-forming region. NGC 2626 is about 3,200 light-years away. At
   that distance this telescopic field of view would span about 30
   light-years along the Vela Molecular Ridge.

                   Tomorrow's picture: moon by planetlight
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