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
- J. Palisa
- Discovery site
- Vienna Obs.
- Discovery date
- 3 October 1910
- Named after
- Valentine Noémi von Springer (née von Rothschild; , daughter of Baron Rothschild )
- Alternative designations
- 1910 KT
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · Flora
- Observation arc
- 106.48 yr (38,891 days)
- Aphelion
- 2.4744 AU
- Perihelion
- 1.8748 AU
- Semi major axis
- 2.1746 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.21 yr (1,171 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 107.58 °
- Mean motion
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Followed by
- Q156655
- Follows
- 702 Alauda
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- +7.25
- Orbital period
- +1171.597908633237
Show 3 more facts
- P6259
Article
703 Noëmi, provisional designation 1910 KT, is a stony Florian asteroid and possible slow rotator from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 8.5 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by Austrian astronomer Johann Palisa at the Vienna Observatory on 3 October 1910. The asteroid was likely named for Baroness Valentine Noémi von Springer (née von Rothschild; 1886–1968).
Orbit and classification