The Spider and The Fly
Image Credit & Copyright:
Joe Morris
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 the smaller fly-shaped cloud on the right 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.