Ceiling Nebula Is Watching You Trick-or-Treat

My friend and astronomer Amy Mainzer sent me a funny picture the other day. Amy is the top banana for NASA's NEOWISE mission, which scans the sky, looking for near-Earth asteroids in the far-infrared part of the spectrum. The Spitzer Space Telescope was a similar observatory, taking more detailed pointed observations of various targets. One such object was NGC 6888, the expanding cloud of gas and dust blown out by the star WR 136: Amy claims it looks like a jack-o'-lantern. I can agree, kinda. ...