NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

NGC 7635: Bubble in a Cosmic Sea

Seemingly adrift in a cosmic sea [ http://www.skyfacto…] of stars and glowing gas, the delicate, floating apparition near the center (next to a blue tinted star) of this widefield view is cataloged as NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. A mere 10 light-years wide, the tiny Bubble Nebula and the larger complex of interstellar gas and dust [ http://www-ssg.sr.u…] clouds are found about 11,000 light-years [ http://en.wikipedia…] distant, straddling the boundary between the parental constellations Cepheus [ http://www.hawastso…] and Cassiopeia [ http://www.hawastso…]. Also included in the breathtaking vista is open star cluster M52 [ http://www.seds.org…] (upper left), some 5,000 light-years away. The digital [ http://www.skyfacto…] color picture is based on photographic plates taken at the Palomar Observatory [ http://www.astro.ca…] between 1992 and 1997. This cropped version spans about 2.7 degrees on the sky corresponding to a width of just over 500 light-years at the estimated distance of the Bubble Nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…].

Digitized Sky Survey [ http://www-gsss.sts…DataCopyrights.htm ], ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator [ http://www.spacetel…]

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Cassiopeia

ESO

Cepheus

New General Catalogue (NGC)

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap060428