Dust-born chaos and a symphony of color.

The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex shows a remarkably intricate structure where color reveals the underlying physics: reflection, scattering, and ionization.

In this image, the golden light of Antares reflects off the surrounding dust, giving the clouds their warm tone. The blue regions around the star of the same name are reflection nebulae — light scattered by fine dust particles, much like Earth’s atmosphere scatters sunlight.
The red glow marks ionized hydrogen, lit up by the ultraviolet radiation from Sigma Scorpii.

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