A dramatic new image of the Cone Nebula shows the pillar-shaped cloud of cold, star-forming molecular gas and dust in unprecedented detail.
The nebula takes its name from its conical shape and is located in the turbulent 7 light-year region of NGC 2264, which is a site of star formation located about 2,500 light-years from Earth.
Because it is relatively close to our planet, the Cone Nebula has been well studied. However, the previous images lacked the incredible detail seen in the new observation, made earlier this year by the very large telescope (VLT), located in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, according to a statement (opens in a new tab) of the European Southern Observatory, which operates the telescope.
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In the VLT image, the nebula – which lies in the constellation Monoceros, “The Unicorn” – takes on a dark, impenetrably cloudy appearance, making it, understandably, almost look like a mythological creature itself.
NASA’s Hubble site colorfully describes the Cone Nebula as “resembling a nightmarish beast rearing its head from a crimson sea”.
In the image, captured with the VLT’s focal reducer/low dispersion spectrograph 2 (FORS2), hydrogen gas can be seen in blue and sulfur gas in red. Rather than appearing in their usual blue, the nebula’s young stars almost look like golden sparkles.
The Cone Nebula is a vivid example of the columnar clouds of cold molecular gas and dust that serve as the raw materials for star birth. This pillar shape forms when young, bright blue stars emit intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds that push matter away from their vicinity. As this material moves, it pushes gas and dust further away from these young stars, compressing them into dense, tall pillars.
Young stars in NGC 2264 have eroded material in this region for millions of years, forming the dense, dark Cone Nebula that recedes from NGC 2264.
According Hubsite (opens in a new tab), the tendrils of gas in NGC 2264 will eventually erode so much that only the densest regions will remain. These areas of dense gas and dust will become the sites of additional star formation and may eventually give birth to planets.
ESO has released the new image of the Cone Nebula to celebrate its 60th anniversary. ESO selected the photo for publication as part of a campaign marking the five countries that signed the convention to establish the organization, which now has 16 collaborating member states and organisations.
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