Stars shine through a celestial gauze of passionate red.

This is a cluster of stars (NGC 6910) near the constellation Cygnus. Surrounding it is what looks like a red overcast sky (which is coincidently not so unusual here on Earth this summer). The red is provided by IC1318, the Gamma Cygni Nebula. And there may be a relationship between the stars and nebula, as this is ground zero, of sorts.

Space zero?

Or the red could just be a huge cloud of interstellar hydrogen, the most prominent element in the galaxy.

When an old star swells and blows up, it casts a lot of mass outward. It's common for some of it to rapidly condense and ignite into new stars. When this happens, a small cluster of stars often marks the perimeter of the old star.

The radiation of these newly formed stars makes the hydrogen atoms in the surrounding cloud glow orange.

I know, you've heard me say that a million times.

[TMI: the stars' radiated photons knock electrons away from hydrogen atoms, causing a chain reaction of flying electrons. Astronomers label the unbalanced hydrogen "ionized." The incomplete hydrogen attracts nearby independent electrons. As each one snaps back into place within an atom, energy is released in red visible light (656.3 nanometers wavelength, in case you're asking). I'm not an astrophysicist, but I know how to Google]

Astronomers say the cluster has been measured at 10 million years old. They also say it's slightly behind the red nebula. That's why the stars are a little pink or yellow. A closer view would show they are actually young blue stars.

NGC6910 is located in the Orion Arm spiral. Guess what? We are, too. And it happens that the cluster is not too far away, at a mere 4000 light years. That means we are seeing the cluster and nebula as they existed 4000 years ago.

Today is just tomorrow's yesterday. After awhile, they add up.

Wow, that's hard to wrap my head around! Where that'd come from? Maybe it was inspired by tonight's tune, 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘔𝘺 𝘛𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘴, by the 𝘒𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘑𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘰.