Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2018 November 9
NGC6188: The Dragons of Ara
ImageCredit & Copyright: Tian Lee
Explanation:Dark shapes with bright edges winging their way through dusty NGC 6188 are tensof light-years long. The emission nebula is found near the edge of an otherwisedark large molecular cloud in the southern constellation Ara, about 4,000light-years away. Born in that region only a few million years ago, the massiveyoung stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association sculpt the fantastic shapes andpower the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation.The recent star formation itself was likely triggered by winds and supernovaexplosions, from previous generations of massive stars, that swept up andcompressed the molecular gas. With image data from the Chilescope Observatory,a false-color Hubble palette was used to create this gorgeous wide-field imageand shows emission from sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms in red, green, andblue hues. The field of view spans about four full Moons, corresponding toabout 150 light years at the estimated distance of NGC 6188.
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