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
- P. M. Henry
- Discovery date
- 4 November 1875
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ b ɜːr θ ə /
- Alternative designations
- A875 VD
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
- Observation arc
- 130.75 yr (47758 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.44 AU (515.21 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.95 AU (441.30 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 3.20 AU (478.26 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 5.72 years (2,087.9 d)
- Average orbital speed
- 16.63 km/s
- Mean anomaly
- 125.046°
- Mean motion
- 0° 10 20.734 / day
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Followed by
- 155 Scylla
- Follows
- 153 Hilda
- Parent body
- Sun
- Diameter
- +192.611
- Orbital period
- +2084.18447190228
- Image
- 000154-asteroid shape model (154) Bertha.png
Show 5 more facts
Article
154 Bertha is a main-belt asteroid. It was discovered by the French brothers Paul Henry and Prosper Henry on 4 November 1875, but the credit for the discovery was given to Prosper. It is probably named after Berthe Martin-Flammarion, sister of the astronomer Camille Flammarion.
Observations performed at the Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado Springs, Colorado in during 2007 produced a light curve with a period of 22.30 ± 0.03 hours and a brightness range of 0.10 ± 0.02 in magnitude. A 1998 measurement gave a value of 27.6 hours, which doesn't fit the PDO data. In 2011, observations from the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico were used to determine a rotation period of 25.224 ± 0.002 hours with a brightness variability of 0.10 ± 0.01 magnitude, ruling out previous studies.