The Southern Crown

at

Behold: cosmic dust clouds and young, energetic stars on the northern border of Corona Australis. To wit:

The dust clouds effectively block light from more distant background stars in the Milky Way. But the striking complex of reflection nebulae cataloged as NGC 6726, 6727, and IC 4812 produce a characteristic blue color as light from the region’s young hot stars is reflected by the cosmic dust. The dust also obscures from view stars still in the process of formation. At the left, smaller yellowish nebula NGC 6729 bends around young variable star R Coronae Australis. Just below it, glowing arcs and loops shocked by outflows from embedded newborn stars are identified as Herbig-Haro objects. On the sky this field of view spans about 1 degree. That corresponds to almost 9 light-years at the estimated distance of the nearby star forming region.

(Image: CHART32 Team, Processing – Johannes Schedler)

apod

Sponsored Link

One thought on “The Southern Crown

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie