The 'Smiling Cat' Nebula: Sh2-284 | European Southern Observatory

The 'Smiling Cat' Nebula: Sh2-284 | European Southern Observatory

This cloud of orange and red, part of the Sh2-284 nebula, is shown here in spectacular detail using data from the VLT Survey Telescope, hosted by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). This nebula is teeming with young stars as gas and dust within it clumps together to form new suns. If you take a look at the cloud as a whole, you might be able to make out the face of a cat, smiling down from the sky.

In the center of this image is a large cloud, orange and red in color, which is stretched out over the majority of the frame. The region in the top left of the cloud is particularly vivid. All around the image there are stars, in different colors of white, orange and purple. Some of these are smaller, background stars, whereas others reside in the foreground of the image, such as those in the central cluster of the nebula.

The Sh2-284 stellar nursery is a vast region of dust and gas and its brightest part, visible in this image, is about 150 light-years (over 1,400 trillion kilometers) across. It is located some 15,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Monoceros.

Nestled in the center of the brightest part of the nebula—right under the ‘cat’s nose’—is a cluster of young stars known as Dolidze 25, which produces large amounts of strong radiation and winds. The radiation is powerful enough to ionize the hydrogen gas in the cloud, thereby producing its bright orange and red colors. It is in clouds like this that the building blocks for new stars reside.

The winds from the central cluster of stars push away the gas and dust in the nebula, hollowing out its center. As the winds encounter denser pockets of material, these offer more resistance meaning that the areas around them are eroded away first. This creates several pillars that can be seen along the edges of Sh2-284 pointing at the center of the nebula, such as the one on the right-hand side of the frame. While these pillars might look small in the image, they are in fact several light-years wide and contain vast amounts of gas and dust out of which new stars form.  

Credit: ESO/VPHAS+ team

Acknowledgement: CASU

Release Date: June 27, 2023

#NASA #ESO #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #Sh2284 #Stars #Dolidze25 #Monoceros #Constellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #VLTSurveyTelescope #Chile #SouthAmerica #Europe #STEM #Education