The Spider Nebula in Infrared
Will the spider ever catch the fly? Not if both are large emission nebulas toward the constellation of the Charioteer ( Auriga ). The spider -shaped gas cloud on the left is actually an emission nebula labelled IC 417 , while a smaller fly-shaped cloud off the image to the left is dubbed NGC 1931 and is both an emission nebula and a reflection nebula . About 10,000 light-years distant, both nebulas harbor young, open star clusters . For scale, the more compact NGC 1931 (Fly) is about 10 light-years across. The featured picture in scientifically-assigned, infrared colors combines images from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Spitzer is celebrating its 16th year orbiting the Sun near the Earth . APOD in other languages: Arabic , Catalan , Chinese (Beijing), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian , Czech , Dutch , Farsi , French , French , German , Hebrew , Indonesian , Japanese , Korean , Montenegrin , Polish , Russian , Serbian , Slovenian , Spanish and Ukrainian