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
Key facts
- Discovered by
- S. Arend
- Discovery site
- Uccle Obs.
- Discovery date
- 3 October 1930
- Named after
- Shota Rustaveli , (Georgian poet)
- Alternative designations
- 1930 TA · 1926 AD, 1926 FH · 1927 FC, 1949 BT · A904 EB, A913 TA
Article
1171 Rusthawelia, provisional designation 1930 TA, is a large and dark background asteroid, approximately 72 kilometers (45 miles) in diameter, located in the outer regions of the asteroid belt. It was discovered on 3 October 1930, by Belgian astronomer Sylvain Arend at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Uccle, and was an unnoticed rediscovery of a lost minor planet then known as "Adelaide". As the asteroid was already named for Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli when the rediscovery was realized, its former designation was given to another asteroid instead, which is now known as 525 Adelaide. Rusthawelia is a primitive P-type asteroid and has a rotation period of 11 hours.
Unnoticed rediscovery of lost asteroid