This stunning dark nebula looks like a cosmic sentinel watching the stars: ScienceAlert

Look deep enough into the darkness of space, you’ll find all sorts of shapes that spark the imagination. Keep staring, and you’ll quickly learn that our universe could be stranger and more wondrous than anything the human mind can dream up.

A recent image released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) captured a small glimpse of this on a cosmic scale: The dark nebula, 7 light-years across, looks like a giant beacon watching the cold black void. Maybe it’s a cyclopean giant looking for planets to devour. Or death itself, haunting the sky, covered with shadows.

Far from being a destroyer of worlds, this darkness represents something far more fertile.

The new image is from ESO’s Very Large Telescope to celebrate the observatory’s 60th anniversary. The theme of the picture is scary conical nebulapart of a larger complex 2,500 light-years away called the NGC 2264 In the constellation Monoceros (the unicorn).

It may not look like most other nebulae You are used to seeing them, glowing brightly with an intricate array of colours. This is because not all nebulae are the same. some reflect light from nearby stars. some ionized with stars inside, They emit their own light.

Some, like the Cone Nebula, are dark and thick dust that absorbs visible light. Only light with wavelengths invisible to the human eye, such as infrared and radio, can penetrate through it.

Opaque nebulae of this type are known as molecular clouds. These include some of the most interesting nebulae to be found: the places where young stars are born. The dust is an effective source of infrared light, which carries heat energy away and cools the cloud. Without the external pressure from heat, gravity would overwhelm the clumps of dust and gas and force them together.

These dense clumps form star seeds. As they rotate, they attract more mass than the surrounding cloud, providing the growing protostar with the pressure needed to begin fusion in its core.

At a certain mass, the star produces what astronomers call luminosity reactions. Bursts of plasma accelerated by the star’s magnetic field lines erupt from its poles, strong radiation pressure generated by the star’s ultraviolet light. Both contribute to the stellar winds that push material away from the young star.

This is what gives the Cone Nebula its iconic shape. The young stars, which burn blue and hot (although they appear golden in the new image), are at a point in their lives where their reactions are blasting away in the dusty nebula. Similar operations have been carved out for celebrities pillars of creation Structures within the Eagle Nebula.

Because infrared light can penetrate these dense clouds, instruments that can see the universe in infrared light — such as the James Webb Space Telescope — are invaluable for revealing details of the star formation processes taking place in them.

But visible light images, such as those of the VLT, show details that disappear at other wavelengths. Only by studying the full spectrum can we gain a comprehensive understanding of everything at play in these enigmatic and wonderful structures.

You can download wallpaper-sized versions of the new image From the ESO website.