Turn It Up to Eleven – The Headphone Nebula – Jones-Emberson 1 (JnEr 1)

This planetary nebula, discovered on photohraphic plates taken in 1939 by Rebecca Jones and Richard M. Emberson at the Harvard Observatory, has often been estimated to be 1,600 light years away. But according to Gaia satellite data, it’s actually 3,063 light years from Earth.

It has a designation of JnEr 1 from the catalog created for the discoveries Jones and Emberson made together. But the more conventional designation is PK 164+31.1 from the catalogue Luboš Perek and Luboš Kohoutek created in 1967 to document all the galactic planetary nebulas that had been discovered through 1964.

The two lobes that give rise to its common name, The Headphone Nebula, may be the result of a binary companion star influencing the outflow of gasses from the central star.