The Cone Nebula is part of a star-forming region of space, NGC 2264, about 2500 light-years away. … [+]
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has marked its 60th anniversary by publishing an all-new image of the iconic Cone Nebula—and it looks like a creature from the deep.
The nebula—a massive star-forming region—was captured earlier this year by the ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.
About 2,700 light-years from Earth in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way—relatively close to the solar system on a galactic scale—the Cone Nebula is found in the constellation of Monoceros, “The Unicorn,” which is an apt location for a deep-sky object that resembles a horn.
The nebula’s main feature is its central pillar of gas and dust, which is where stars are forming right now. That pillar, which appears to have one eye and a mouth, is a whopping seven-light years in length.
This image from the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) shows the region of the sky around the Cone Nebula. … [+]
The Cone Nebula belongs to a larger star-forming region called NGC 2264, which was discovered in 1785 by German-born British astronomer William Herschel, who in 1781 discovered Uranus.
NGC 2264 is also called the Christmas Tree Cluster and is best seen in December from both the northern and southern hemispheres of Earth.
Reminiscent of the recent “Pillars of creation” redux from the James Webb Space Telescope, the Cone Nebula’s similarly giant clouds of cold molecular gas and dust form when blue stars give off stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation that blow away any material close by. This gas and dust compress into dense and dark pillars.
This new image was taken by the Very Large Telescope using filters to represent hydrogen gas in blue and sulfur gas in red. All telescopes use filters to accentuate the presence of different wavelengths of light—and therefore different gases and other objects—though in this case the bright blue stars now appear golden in color.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
