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
- Karl Theodor Robert Luther
- Discovery date
- 15 March 1872
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ p aɪ θ oʊ /
- Named after
- Πειθώ Peithō
- Alternative designations
- A872 EA
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
- Adjectives
- Peithoian / p aɪ ˈ θ oʊ . i ə n /
- Observation arc
- 144.05 yr (52615 d)
- Aphelion
- 2.8353 AU (424.15 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.03988 AU (305.162 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.43757 AU (364.655 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.81 yr (1390.1 d )
- Average orbital speed
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Peitho
- Followed by
- 119 Althaea
- Follows
- 117 Lomia
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- +40.211
- Mass
- +76
- Orbital period
- +1390.333734696246
Show 4 more facts
Article
118 Peitho is a main-belt asteroid. It is probably an S-type asteroid, suggesting a siliceous mineralogy. It was discovered by R. Luther on March 15, 1872, and named after one of the two Peithos in Greek mythology. There have been two observed Peithoan occultations of a dim star: one was in 2000 and the other in 2003.
This body is orbiting the Sun with a period of 3.81 years and an eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.16. The orbital plane is inclined by 7.7° to the plane of the ecliptic. The cross-section diameter is ~42 km. In 2009, Photometric observations of this asteroid were made at the Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The resulting asymmetrical light curve shows a synodic rotation period of 7.823 ± 0.002 hours with a brightness variation of 0.15 ± 0.02 in magnitude. This was reasonably consistent with independent studies performed in 1980 (7.78 hours) and 2009 (7.8033 hours). The lightcurve inversion process has been used to construct a model of this object, suggesting a blocky shape with flattened poles.