Picture of the Day · NASA
PK 164 +31.1: The Headphone Nebula
2026-05-27
What is a pair of headphones doing in the sky? Today’s image features the Headphone Nebula, also known as PK 164 +31.1 or Jones-Emberson 1. This planetary nebula, the remnant of a dying Sun-like star, faintly occupies an angular region of the Lynx constellation about 1/5th the diameter of the full moon. The red and blue-ish green colors trace hydrogen and oxygen atoms, respectively, that have been excited and ionized by the nebula's central white dwarf. The headphone shape, where two lobes of hydrogen puncture the inner region of oxygen, adds this object to a long list of oddly shaped nebulae. The morphology of such strange nebulae hint at the presence of a stellar or planetary companion, which can stir the material flowing out from the dying star. You can listen to Hubble and JWST sonifications of planetary nebulae through your very own headphones!
via NASA APOD
Small body data
1158 Luda (1929 QF)
- Orbit class
- Main-belt Asteroid
- Diameter
- 18.636 km
- Albedo
- 0.221
- Rotation period
- 6.863 h
- Absolute magnitude
- 10.920 H
- Earth MOID
- 1.310 AU
via NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
Key facts
- Discovered by
- G. Neujmin
- Discovery site
- Simeiz Obs.
- Discovery date
- 31 August 1929
- Named after
- Ludmilla Neujmin, (discoverer's sister)
- Alternative designations
- 1929 QF · 1954 UQ 1 , 1958 TG 1 · 1972 GC
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · Maria · Eunomia
- Observation arc
- 87.27 yr (31,876 days)
- Aphelion
- 2.8532 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.2742 AU
- Semi major axis
- 2.5637 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 4.11 yr (1,499 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 56.051 °
- Mean motion
Article
1158 Luda, provisional designation 1929 QF, is a stony asteroid from the middle regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 19 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 31 August 1929, by Soviet astronomer Grigory Neujmin at Simeiz Observatory on the Crimean peninsula. It was named after Ludmilla Neujmin, the sister of the discoverer.
Orbit and classification