DR 6 Nebula, Galactic Ghoul
The "DR 6" nebula, a "monster" lurking behind a blanket of cosmic dust, is unveiled in this 2004 Halloween image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Resembling a ghoul with two hollow eyes and a screaming mouth, this cloud of newborn stars was uncovered by Spitzer's heat-seeking infrared eyes. The nebula resides in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy and is home to a cluster of about 10 massive newborn stars, ranging in size from 10 to 20 times the mass of our Sun. The nebular "eyes" and "mouth" were carved out by intense heat and winds, which shoot outward from the stars (located in the central bar or "nose"). The green material remaining in the eyes and mouth is comprised of gas, while the red regions and tendrils beyond make up the dusty cloud that originally gave birth to the young stars. Within the nebula's central bar, a second generation of stars is in the process of forming, sculpting their stellar nursery, and ultimately affecting the birth of yet another generation of stars. DR 6 is located 3,900 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. The distance from one end of its central bar to the other is the about light-years, or about the same distance from our Sun to its nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri. This image composite was taken on November 27, 2003, by Spitzer's infrared array camera. It is composed of images obtained at four wavelengths: microns (blue), microns (green), microns (orange) and 8 microns (red).
Size: 3103px × 4350px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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