{"id":213038,"url":"https://www.kudos365.com/news/213038-ic-4592-the-blue-horsehead-reflection-nebula-04-07-26","short_url":"https://www.kudos365.com/news/213038","headline":"IC 4592: The Blue Horsehead Reflection Nebula • 04/07/26","content":"\u003cp\u003eNASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDo you see the horse's head?   What you are seeing is not the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion, but rather a fainter nebula that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging.  The main part of the here-imaged molecular cloud complex is  reflection nebula IC 4592.  Reflection nebulas are made up of very fine dust that normally appears dark but can look quite blue when reflecting the visible light of energetic nearby stars.  In this case, the source of much of the reflected light is a star at the eye of the horse.  That star is part of Nu Scorpii, one of the brighter star systems toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius).   A second reflection nebula dubbed IC 4601 is visible surrounding two stars just below the image center.  The featured picture was taken from  Sawda Natheel in  Qatar.   Jigsaw Nebula: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003ePhoto by Rabeea Alkuwari\u003c/p\u003e","content_plain":"NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:\n\nDo you see the horse's head?   What you are seeing is not the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion, but rather a fainter nebula that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging.  The main part of the here-imaged molecular cloud complex is  reflection nebula IC 4592.  Reflection nebulas are made up of very fine dust that normally appears dark but can look quite blue when reflecting the visible light of energetic nearby stars.  In this case, the source of much of the reflected light is a star at the eye of the horse.  That star is part of Nu Scorpii, one of the brighter star systems toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius).   A second reflection nebula dubbed IC 4601 is visible surrounding two stars just below the image center.  The featured picture was taken from  Sawda Natheel in  Qatar.   Jigsaw Nebula: Astronomy Puzzle of the Day\n\n\nPhoto by Rabeea Alkuwari","published_at":"2026-04-07T14:16:00-07:00","updated_at":"2026-04-07T14:16:02-07:00","author":{"type":"Person","name":"Specola","url":"https://www.kudos365.com/profiles/298285-specola"},"description":"Stay up-to-date with Specola on Kudos 365. View their photo published Apr/07/2026 on Science - Tech - Astronomy. Browse your favorite topics and share your expertise, too.","type":"photo","image":"https://k365pi.imgix.net/site/apod/generated/f4bab826-c392-4c3b-a703-2aa16e8c00d6.jpg?auto=compress,format\u0026fit=max\u0026w=1200\u0026h=1200\u0026q=48","categories":[{"name":"Science - Tech - Astronomy","url":"https://www.kudos365.com/categories/986-science-tech-astronomy"}],"schema":{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"CreativeWork","url":"https://www.kudos365.com/news/213038-ic-4592-the-blue-horsehead-reflection-nebula-04-07-26","headline":"IC 4592: The Blue Horsehead Reflection Nebula • 04/07/26","image":"https://k365pi.imgix.net/site/apod/generated/f4bab826-c392-4c3b-a703-2aa16e8c00d6.jpg?auto=compress,format\u0026fit=max\u0026w=1200\u0026h=1200\u0026q=48","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Specola","url":"https://www.kudos365.com/profiles/298285-specola"},"datePublished":"2026-04-07T14:16:00-07:00","subjectOf":[{"@type":"Thing","name":"Science - Tech - Astronomy","url":"https://www.kudos365.com/categories/986-science-tech-astronomy"}]}}