The Cone Nebula is part of a star-forming region of space, NGC 2264, about 2500 light-years away. Its pillar-like appearance is a perfect example of the shapes that can develop in giant clouds of cold molecular gas and dust, known for creating new stars. This dramatic new view of the nebula was captured with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), and released on the occasion of ESO’s 60th anniversary. Credit: ESO
A Wondrous Star Factory Image Marks 60 Years of Collaboration
For the past 60 years, the European Southern Observatory (local events in the ESO Member States and other countries.
This video starts from our location in the galaxy, showing the stellar and dusty band of the
This image from the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) shows the region of the sky around the Cone Nebula. The nebulous area at the center of the image is NGC 2264, an area of the sky that includes the Christmas Tree star cluster and the Cone Nebula below it (at the very center of the frame). Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2, Acknowledgment: D. De Martin
The Cone Nebula is a perfect example of the pillar-like shapes that develop in the giant clouds of cold molecular gas and dust, known for creating new stars. This type of pillar arises when massive, newly formed bright blue stars give off stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation that blow away the material from their vicinity. As this material is pushed away, the gas and dust further away from the young stars get compressed into dense, dark, and tall pillar-like shapes. This process helps create the dark Cone Nebula, pointing away from the brilliant stars in NGC 2264.
In this image, obtained with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) on ESO’s VLT in Chile, hydrogen gas is represented in blue and sulfur gas in red. The use of these filters makes the otherwise bright blue stars, which indicate recent star formation, appear almost golden, contrasting with the dark cone-like sparklers.
This chart shows the location of the Cone Nebula in the constellation Monoceros (The Unicorn), in red. The map shows most of the stars visible to the unaided eye under good conditions. Credit: ESO, IAU and Sky & Telescope
Building on their 60 years of experience in astronomy development, discovery, and cooperation, ESO continues to chart new territory for astronomy, technology, and international collaboration. With our current facilities and ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), we will keep on addressing humanity’s biggest questions about the Universe and enabling unimaginable discoveries.
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The image in this release was created as part of the ESO Cosmic Gems program, an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and public outreach. The program makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. All data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and are made available to astronomers through ESO’s science archive.
