Running Man Nebula
01 Mar 2016Thelan
When one wants to visit all the places of interest in the Barnard's Loop Region, the Running Man Nebula is one of most important and noticeable ones. It partially blends into the Orion Nebula, but is strikingly different in color. Like Witch's Head, it seems to be mostly bright purple from the outside, with a bar of dark cold gas in the center.
A clash of bright colors on the edge of Orion Nebula as seen from Running Man Sector CQ-Y D21.
I happened upon a water world in Running Man Sector CQ-Y D14 that seemed to have some kind of lights around the polar cap that didn't look like auroras and approached to investigate.
It's probably just ice glittering in the reflected glow of the moon or something. After a few weeks in space one begins to see things where they shouldn't be.
...Of course. Not even northern lights, nothing. Dark and dead, alien icy ocean stretches down below.
If nothing else, this planet at least made a good backdrop for yet another shameless spaceship selfie.
At the surface of the moon of this same mysterious ocean planet, the nebula creates a skyscape of magic purple clouds.
Moving deeper into the nebula itself, it becomes thicker and grayish, but yet a slight purple tinge persists upon everything.
This ice moon seems to be a labyrinth of mile-deep canyons, cracks and craters.
It looks almost like a cloudy winter sky down there. The ice is strewn with dark rocks of unknown origin and is solid enough to hold a thousand-ton ship.
But... It's time to move on. At first, I intended to head towards Flame Nebula, but then changed my mind and decided to survey Messier 78; that will be our next waypoint.