{"id":213985,"url":"https://www.kudos365.com/news/213985-messier-24-sagittarius-star-cloud-07-11-26","short_url":"https://www.kudos365.com/news/213985","headline":"Messier 24: Sagittarius Star Cloud • 07/11/26","content":"\u003cp\u003eNASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eUnlike most entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog of deep sky objects, M24 is not a bright galaxy, star cluster, or nebula. It's a gap in nearby, obscuring interstellar dust clouds that allows a view of the distant stars in the Sagittarius spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. Direct your gaze through this gap with binoculars or a small telescope and you are looking through a window over 300 light-years wide at stars some 10,000 light-years or more from Earth. Sometimes called the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud, M24's luminous stars stretch across this gorgeous interstellar scene.  Spanning over four full moons on the sky toward the constellation Sagittarius, the telescopic field of view includes dark markings B92 and B93 near the center of M24, along with other clouds of dust and glowing nebulae toward the center of the Milky Way.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003ePhoto by Chuck Ayoub\u003c/p\u003e","content_plain":"NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:\n\nUnlike most entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog of deep sky objects, M24 is not a bright galaxy, star cluster, or nebula. It's a gap in nearby, obscuring interstellar dust clouds that allows a view of the distant stars in the Sagittarius spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. Direct your gaze through this gap with binoculars or a small telescope and you are looking through a window over 300 light-years wide at stars some 10,000 light-years or more from Earth. Sometimes called the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud, M24's luminous stars stretch across this gorgeous interstellar scene.  Spanning over four full moons on the sky toward the constellation Sagittarius, the telescopic field of view includes dark markings B92 and B93 near the center of M24, along with other clouds of dust and glowing nebulae toward the center of the Milky Way.\n\n\nPhoto by Chuck Ayoub","published_at":"2026-07-11T14:16:00-07:00","updated_at":"2026-07-12T23:16:56-07:00","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 Jul/11/2026 on Science - Tech - Astronomy. Browse your favorite topics and share your expertise, too.","type":"photo","image":"https://k365pi.imgix.net/site/apod/generated/0e712554-7f82-44b5-93c5-c2a690de13d8.jpg?auto=compress,format\u0026fit=max\u0026w=1200\u0026h=1200\u0026q=48","likes_count":6,"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/213985-messier-24-sagittarius-star-cloud-07-11-26","headline":"Messier 24: Sagittarius Star Cloud • 07/11/26","image":"https://k365pi.imgix.net/site/apod/generated/0e712554-7f82-44b5-93c5-c2a690de13d8.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":"2026-07-11T14:16:00-07:00","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/LikeAction","userInteractionCount":6}],"subjectOf":[{"@type":"Thing","name":"Science - Tech - Astronomy","url":"https://www.kudos365.com/categories/986-science-tech-astronomy"}]}}