Birdhead Nebula

Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hub­ble Her­itage Team (AURA/STScI).

A cloud of gas and dust resem­bles the head of a bird div­ing down or a comet in this image from the NASA/ESA Hub­ble Space Telescope.

Explore the fan-shaped neb­ula. Tell us in the com­ments below what shapes or sto­ries you see.

Hubble’s Vari­able Neb­ula, or NGC 2261, is illu­mi­nated by R Mono­cero­tis, hid­den in the bright area of dust at the tip of the bird’s nose. Amer­i­can astronomer Edwin P Hub­ble, whom the Hub­ble Space Tele­scope is named after, stud­ied and noted that neb­ula became brighter and dim­mer over time. This light vari­a­tions within the neb­ula was thought to be caused by the star itself. Later astronomers found that shad­ows cast by dense clus­ters of dust near the star itself give rise to intri­cate pat­terns of light­ness and dark­ness we see in the cloud.

R Mono­cero­tis is a heavy star about 10 times more mas­sive than our Sun. The star is also just emerg­ing from its cocoon of gas and dust. Astronomers esti­mate that it was born only about 300,000 years ago. Like many other new stars, sci­en­tist think that there is another, twin wing of gas and dust hid­den behind this one.

NGC 2261 is found about 2,500 light-years from Earth toward the dim con­stel­la­tion Mono­c­eros, the Uni­corn. Star car­tog­ra­pher Jakob Bartsch first added the con­stel­la­tion to his star maps in 1624.

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