The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released an all-new image of the iconic Cone Nebula to mark its 60th anniversary. And it looks like a creature from the deep sea.
An image of the nebula (the giant region where stars form) was captured by ESO’s Very Large Telescope VTL in Chile in 2022.
About 2,700 light-years from Earth, in the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy (relatively close to our solar system on cosmic scales), the Cone Nebula was found in the constellation Unicorn. It’s a perfect place for a distant object with a horn-like shape.
The nebula’s main feature is the central column of gas and dust in which stars are still forming. The pillar, which looks like it has one eye and mouth, is seven light years long.
This Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) image shows the sky region around the Cone Nebula. The nebula region in the center of the image, NGC 2264, contains the Christmas Tree Cluster and the Cone Nebula visible below (ESO/DIGITIZED SKY SURVEY 2. ACKN, https://www.eso.org/public/usa/images/ eso2215c/?lang)
The Cone Nebula belongs to a star-forming region called NGC 2264. NGC 2264 was discovered by William Herschel, a British astronomer born in Germany in 1785 who discovered Uranus in 1781.
NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” is best visible in December from both the northern and southern hemispheres of Earth.
Recently captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, the “Returned”pillar of creationSimilarly, the Cone Nebula’s similar giant cloud of cold molecular gas and dust forms when blue stars emit stellar winds and powerful ultraviolet radiation that blows away everything nearby. This gas and dust is compressed to create a pillar of darkness.
The new image was taken with the Very Large Telescope VLT, using a filter that renders hydrogen gas blue and sulfur gas red. Every telescope uses filters to highlight different wavelengths of light, different gases and other matter, but in this image the bright blue stars appear gold.
Wishing for clear skies and big eyes.