Explanation:
Is there a monster in IC 1396?
Known to some as the
Elephant's Trunk
Nebula, parts of the glowing gas and
dust clouds of this
star formation region
may appear to take on foreboding forms, some
nearly human.
The entire nebula might even look like a face of a monster.
The only real
monster here,
however, is a
bright young star too far from Earth to be dangerous.
Energetic light from this star is eating away the
dust of the dark
cometary globule at the top right of the image.
Jets and
winds of particles
emitted from this star are also pushing away ambient gas and
dust.
Nearly 3,000
light-years distant, the
IC 1396
complex is relatively faint and covers a region on the sky
with an apparent width of more than 10
full moons.
Recently, over 100 young stars have been
discovered forming in the nebula.
