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
- H. E. Wood
- Discovery site
- Johannesburg Obs.
- Discovery date
- 4 March 1932
- Named after
- Frank Watson Dyson , (English astronomer)
- Alternative designations
- 1932 EB 1 · 1931 AA 1 , 1945 RA · 1948 CE, 1956 PB · A908 DC, A920 EB
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · ( outer ) , background
- Observation arc
- 97.31 yr (35,542 days)
- Aphelion
- 3.5165 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.8633 AU
- Semi major axis
- 3.1899 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 5.70 yr (2,081 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 290.13 °
- Mean motion
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Frank Watson Dyson
- Followed by
- Q26772
- Follows
- Q137248
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- +79.19
- Orbital period
- +2079.228712318503
- Image
- 1241Dysona (Lightcurve Inversion).png
Show 4 more facts
Article
1241 Dysona, provisional designation 1932 EB1, is a dark background asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 77 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 4 March 1932, by English astronomer Harry Edwin Wood at the Union Observatory in Johannesburg, South Africa. The asteroid was named after English astronomer Frank Watson Dyson.
Orbit and classification