Elephant's Trunk Nebula
Emission nebula | |
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Observation data | |
Distance | 2,400 ly |
Constellation | Cepheus |
The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is a concentration of
The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is now thought to be a site of star formation, containing several very young (less than 100,000 yr) stars that were discovered in infrared images in 2003. Two older (but still young, a couple of million years, by the standards of stars, which live for billions of years) stars are present in a small, circular cavity in the head of the globule. Winds from these young stars may have emptied the cavity.[citation needed]
The combined action of the light from the massive star ionizing and compressing the rim of the cloud, and the wind from the young stars shifting gas from the center outward lead to very high compression in the Elephant's Trunk Nebula. This pressure has triggered the current generation of protostars.[2][3]
Gallery
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Captured in classic Hubble Palette (Ha/OIII/SII) using a 127mm refractor telescope
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Captured in hydrogen alpha using a 102mm telescope
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Captured inhydrogen alphaand oxygen
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Ha+OIII+SII Hubble palette modified
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Widefield view of the IC1396 nebula in SHO Hubble palette
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Close-up on the nebula
See also
- List of largest nebulae
- Lists of nebulae
References
- Bibcode:1979A&A....75..345M.
- S2CID 27173042.
- S2CID 49528100.
External links
- Media related to Elephant's Trunk Nebula at Wikimedia Commons
- Capturing the Stars, Astrophotography by the Masters IC 1396A. Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-10-13
- Elephant's Trunk Nebula in IC1396 Paul Beskeen Astrophotography. Retrieved 2010-10-13
- IC 1396 in Mapped Color 17 August 2004. Russell Croman Astrophotography. Retrieved 2010-10-13
- IC 1396 in modified SHO 12 September 2016. Richard Pattie.