APOD: 2026 July 31 – NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad

APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 July 31 – NGC… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day 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. NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad Explanation: The Dark Doodad Nebula drifts through southern skies , a tantalizing target for binoculars toward the small constellation Musca , The Fly.

A dusty interstellar cloud, it’s seen against rich starfields just south of the Coalsack Nebula and the Southern Cross. Stretching for about 3 degrees across this telescopic field of view, the Dark Doodad is punctuated near its southern tip (upper right) by yellowish globular star cluster NGC 4372 . Of course NGC 4372 roams the halo of our Milky Way galaxy, a background object some 20,000 light-years away and only by chance along our line-of-sight to the Dark Doodad.

About 700 light-years distant and over 30 light-years long, the Dark Doodad’s well defined silhouette belongs to the potentially star-forming Musca molecular cloud . The dusty Dark Doodad’s delightfully alliterative moniker was first coined by astro-imager and writer Dennis di Cicco in 1986 while observing Comet Halley from the Australian outback. Tomorrow’s picture: buck and belt Date July 31, 2026 Credit & Copyright Alessandro Cipolat Bares Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC , NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech.

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