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
- 21 October 1911
- Alternative designations
- 1911 NC, 1988 VG 2
- Observation arc
- 104.39 yr (38129 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.0675 AU (458.89 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 1.8441 AU (275.87 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.4558 AU (367.38 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.85 yr (1405.7 d )
- Mean anomaly
- 73.788 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 15 21.96 / day
- Inclination
- 11.707°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 204.27°
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Followed by
- 725 Amanda
- Follows
- Q156745
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- +9.492
- Orbital period
- +1404.955218418409
Show 3 more facts
- P6259
Article
724 Hapag is a minor planet orbiting the Sun in the asteroid belt that was found by Austrian astronomer Johann Palisa in 1911 and named after the German shipping company Hamburg America Line. It was assigned a provisional name of 1911 NC, then became a lost asteroid until it was rediscovered in 1988 as 1988 VG2 by Tsutomu Hioki and N. Kawasato at Okutama, Japan.
Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 2011 gave a light curve with a period of 3.1305 ± 0.0001 hours and a brightness variation of 0.11 ± 0.01 in magnitude.