Unlike the Horsehead, Jellyfish, or Owl Nebulae, the Dark Doodad Nebula doesn’t resemble anything in particular—hence the name "doodad."
Unlike the Horsehead, Jellyfish, or Owl Nebulae, the Dark Doodad Nebula doesn’t resemble anything in particular—hence the name "doodad," a term for a small, unidentifiable object. Imagine it as a celestial Rorschach test: do you see a serpentine ink blot, cosmic calligraphy, or just a really long space noodle? Yet, despite its nondescript name, astronomers consider it one of the finest dark nebulae, describing it as "wonderful, winding, and very definite.”
This cosmic thingamajig, located near the globular cluster NGC 4372, spans nearly three degrees across the constellation Musca. Catalogued by Aage Sandqvist of Stockholm Observatory in 1977, some suggest it should bear his name - but let’s be honest—it probably doesn’t look much like him either.
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