Elephant Trunk

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/W. Reach (SSC/Caltech)

On our starry safari, we’ve encoun­tered fish, bugs, birds and other eyes in the dark. Com­ing out of the dark­ness next is an ele­phant; or a part of an ele­phant. The Ele­phant Trunk Neb­ula is home to new stars. It’s a nurs­ery where young stars start to glow on their own.

Astronomers put together two images from dif­fer­ent cam­eras aboard the NASA’s Spitzer Space Tele­scope. Com­bin­ing images gives us a look deeper into the neb­ula to see new areas. In this case, we can see things that are hot more eas­ily. Astronomers named the neb­ula the ele­phant trunk because of the way it looks in nor­mal light to our eyes.The Ele­phant Trunk Neb­ula is a dark glob of gas and dust. It is part of a larger neb­ula called IC 1396 in the con­stel­la­tion Cepheus, the King. The light from the Ele­phant Trunk Neb­ula took 2,450 years to reach Earth. A long time to hear the shout out of our celes­tial elephant.

Does this neb­ula look like any other ani­mals to you?