A little imagination reveals an eyeball staring lazily into space in this photograph of a star-formation region known as IC 1396
A little imagination reveals an eyeball staring lazily into space in this photograph of a star-formation region known as IC 1396.
The red areas are mostly hydrogen, lit because they are warmed by many hot, young stars in what astronomers call an emission nebula. The scene is about 2,500 light-years from Earth.
Star formation is forced along in pockets of the nebula where clouds are pressurized by intense radiation and a "wind" of charged particles from other newborn, massive stars. The pressure carves the hydrogen into the bubbles and filamentary structures.
The image was obtained by Jean-Charles Cuillandre
using the Canada-France-Hawaii
Telescope, atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
Credit: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope / J.-C.
Cuillandre / Coelum
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