Explanation:
One might guess that the group of stars on the left is
responsible for shaping the gas cloud on the right -- but it
probably is not.
Observations of many of the stars in the
NGC 2467 show them to be more a superposition of
loose groups of stars at different distances than a coherent
open cluster of
stars energizing the nebula.
Still, the above image captures various stages of star formation.
The stars at the far left have already formed and their
birth nebulae have already dispersed.
At the lower left lies a very young star that is
breaking free of its surrounding
birth cocoon of gas.
On the right of the above image, a bright wall of bright gas glows as it
evaporates from the energy of
many newly formed bright stars.
Toward the center, deep dark
lanes of
dust hide parts of the
nebula that surely are forming new stars.
The 8-meter GeminiSouth Telescope, perched on a mountaintop in
Cerro Pachon,
Chile, took the
above image.
NGC 2467 lies toward the southern
constellation of
Puppis, with many of the stars being about 17,000
light years distant.
