Looking deeper into the cosmos, we see space dust take on all sorts of imaginative shapes. The European Southern Observatory recently released a photo of the NGC 2264 Cone Nebula to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the observatory. Unlike other nebulae that emit various bright colors, this nebula is very dark, and only infrared, radio and other light invisible to the human eye can penetrate them. See It looks like a behemoth with a horn lurking.
Nebulae refer to interstellar clouds where cosmic dust, hydrogen, helium, and other plasmas gather, including diffuse nebulae, planetary nebulae, supernova remnants, dark nebulae, etc. Not all nebulae reflect the light of nearby stars or are ionized by the ultraviolet radiation of the inner stars. NGC 2264, a complex containing the Cone Nebula and the Christmas Tree Cluster, is about 2,700 light-years away from Earth. The Cone Nebula is dark and full of light-absorbing thickness. Dark nebula of dust.
Cone nebulae also belong to molecular clouds. As far as we know, all newborn stars are born from molecular clouds. As gravity compresses dust and gas clumps, it provides the high pressure required for the core fusion of protostars. Cone nebulae The most prominent feature is the central column of gas and dust from which newborn stars form, which appears to have eyes and a mouth, and is 7 light-years long.
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the European Southern Observatory, the agency released a new image of the Cone Nebula taken by the Very Large Telescope (VLA), which uses filters to emphasize different wavelengths of light, so different gases are also colored differently, such as hydrogen is blue , sulfur appear red, and the otherwise bright blue stars appear to turn golden.
Although visible light cannot penetrate dark nebulae, infrared rays can. Therefore, the Webb Space Telescope, which can observe the universe in the infrared band, can unearth a considerable amount of unknown value in dark nebulae. As astronomers study them across wavelengths, we’ll gain a fuller picture of these enigmatic and fascinating structures.
(First image source: European Southern Observatory)
