Pillars
and Jets in the Pelican Nebula
From
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
What
dark structures arise from the Pelican Nebula?
Visible
as a bird-shaped nebula toward the constellation of a bird (Cygnus,
the Swan), the Pelican
Nebula is a place dotted with newly formed stars but fouled with
dark dust. These smoke-sized dust grains formed in the
cool atmospheres of young stars and were dispersed by stellar winds and explosions.
Impressive
Herbig-Haro jets are
seen emitted by a star on the right that is helping to destroy the light
year-long dust pillar that
contains it.
The featured image was scientifically-colored to
emphasize light emitted by small amounts of ionized nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur in the nebula made
predominantly of hydrogen and helium.
The Pelican
Nebula (IC 5067 and IC 5070) is about 2,000 light-years away and can
be found with a small telescope to the northeast of the bright star Deneb.
Image
Credit & Copyright: Larry
Van Vleet (LVVASTRO