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. Belyavskyj , N. Ivanov
- Discovery site
- Simeiz Obs.
- Discovery date
- 25 August 1927
- Named after
- Nadezhda Babushkina, (Soviet female parachutist)
- Alternative designations
- 1927 QL · 1925 JA, A900 YB
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · ( outer ) , Veritas
- Observation arc
- 116.27 yr (42,467 days)
- Aphelion
- 3.3349 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.9907 AU
- Semi major axis
- 3.1628 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 5.62 yr (2,054 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 236.41 °
- Mean motion
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Followed by
- Q135773
- Follows
- Q135760
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- +66.27
- Orbital period
- +2055.320505447468
Show 4 more facts
- P720
Article
1086 Nata, provisional designation 1927 QL, is a carbonaceous Veritasian asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 68 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 25 August 1927, by Russian astronomers Sergey Belyavsky and Nikolaj Ivanov at the Simeiz Observatory on the Crimean peninsula. The asteroid was named in memory of Soviet female parachutist Nata Babushkina (1915–1936).
Orbit and classification