APOD: 2026 July 7 – NGC 6188: Dragons of Ara
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 July 7
NGC 6188: Dragons of Ara
Image Credit & Copyright:
Rod Prazeres
Explanation:
Where can you find dragons fighting in the night sky?
In the southern
constellation of the Altar:
Ara.
The dragons are, of course, actually made of
suggestively shaped
gas and dust.
The celestial home of the
mythological battling beasts is cataloged as
NGC 6188 and located about 4,000
light years away near the edge of a
large molecular cloud.
Massive, young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association were formed there only a few million years ago,
sculpting the dark shapes
and powering the nebular glow with
stellar winds and intense
ultraviolet radiation.
Joining NGC 6188 on this cosmic canvas,
visible toward the lower right, is unusual emission nebula
NGC 6164,
also created by one of the region’s
massive stars.
This
impressively wide field
picture,
captured from
Queensland,
Australia,
spans over 2 degrees (four
full Moons).
Tomorrow’s picture: open space
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Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn
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