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Credit & Copyright: Marcelo Salemme
Explanation:
They're like mountain peaks, but they are forming stars.
Bright-rimmed, flowing shapes gather near the center of
this rich starfield toward the borders of the nautical southern
constellations Puppis and Vela.
Composed of interstellar gas and
dust, the grouping of
light-year sized cometary globules is about 1300
light-years distant.
Energetic ultraviolet light from nearby hot stars
has molded the globules
and ionized their bright rims.
The globules also
stream away from the
Vela supernova remnant which
may have influenced their swept-back shapes.
Within them, cores of cold gas and
dust are likely
collapsing to form
low mass stars whose formation will ultimately cause the
globules to disperse.
In fact, cometary globule CG 30 (upper right in the group) sports a
small reddish glow inside its head,
a telltale sign of energetic jets from a
star
in the early stages
of formation.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: dust
Publications with words: dust
See also: