IC 5146, the Cocoon Nebula
The Cocoon Nebula is home to not just one thing, but many. It houses several newborn stars in what astronomers say is an open star cluster under development.
Like other stellar nurseries, the Cocoon Nebula (also known as IC 5146) gets
its beauty from billowing clouds of gas and dust -- the raw material for star
formation.
Radiation from hot, young stars, especially the dominant one in the middle,
lights the nebula. Some of the gas is so hot it emits light of its own. Dark
areas are lanes of dust so thick they block the light behind them.
This picture, taken June 10, was made by amateurs
Julie and Jessica Garcia with the help of a professional astronomer at a nightly
observing program at the Kitt Peak National
Observatory in Arizona.
The nebula is about 4,000 light-years from Earth.
Credit: Julie and Jessica Garcia/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF
| 
