APOD: 2020 August 7 - The Pipe Nebula

Good Red Friday morning, Rallypoint. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is titled "The Pipe Nebula." Astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard (1857-1923) was the first to realize that the dark patches he observed between streams of glittering stars were actually dense clouds of cold gas and dust. He was working at the Lick Observatory in California when these discoveries were made. Today, we know these dark patches harbor most of the material from which new stars and planets will form in the Milky Way.

Four of the dark patches: B59, B72, B77 and B78 combine to form what we know as the Pipe Nebula. Located in the constellation Ophiuchus (Oh-fee-OO-kus), the Pipe Nebula is only 450 light years away from Earth.