APOD: 2026 April 26 – Mystic Mountain Monster being Destroyed
Discover the cosmos!
Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2026 April 26
Mystic Mountain Monster being Destroyed
Image Credit:
Hubble,
NASA,
ESA;
Processing &
License:
Judy Schmidt
Explanation:
Inside the head of this interstellar monster is a star that is slowly destroying it.
The huge monster, actually an
inanimate series of pillars of gas and dust, measures
light years in length.
The in-head star is not itself visible through the
opaque
interstellar dust
but is bursting out partly by ejecting opposing beams of energetic particles called
Herbig-Haro jets.
Located about 7,500 light years away in the
Carina Nebula and known informally as
Mystic Mountain, the appearance of these pillars
is dominated by dark dust even though they are composed mostly of clear
hydrogen gas.
The featured image was taken with the
Hubble Space Telescope.
All over these pillars, the
energetic light and
winds from massive newly formed stars are
evaporating and dispersing the dusty stellar nurseries in which they formed.
Within a few million years, the head of this giant,
as well as most of its body, will have been
completely evaporated by internal and surrounding stars.
Tomorrow’s picture: lost comet
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Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn
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