Space2 min read
Space
Pelican Nebula's Star Formation Captured in New 25-Hour Deep-Sky Image
A newly featured image from Utah shows the Pelican Nebula's dense dust filaments and the bright "ionization front" where young stars are transforming cold gas into hot gas.
Step by step
- 1
Young stars form within the nebula's gas
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Starlight heats the surrounding cold gas
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Ionization front marks the hot-cold boundary
- 4
Nebula's shape keeps changing over millions of years
The Pelican Nebula, officially designated IC 5070, is separated from the larger North America Nebula by a filled with dark dust. A newly featured deep-sky image taken from Utah, incorporating 25 hours of exposure, brings out fine detail in the nebula's filamentary dust.
The Pelican Nebula is widely studied because it is an active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds. Light from young, energetic stars is slowly transforming the nebula's cold gas into hot gas, with the advancing boundary between the two — known as an — visible as bright orange in the image. Particularly dense tentacles of cold gas remain within the nebula, which is bounded by the dark nebula LDN 935.
Millions of years from now, as the balance and placement of its stars and gas continues to shift, the nebula is expected to look completely different and might no longer be recognisable as the Pelican.
Terms explained
The story so far
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#Pelican Nebula#astronomy#star formation#astrophotography#IC 5070
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