On the occasion of its 60th anniversary, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) presented a new image of the diffuse Cone Nebula obtained by the VLT (Very Large Telescope) in Chile. The press release was published on the astronomical organization’s website.

Discovered by astronomer William Herschel in the late 18th century, the Cone Nebula is part of the larger star forming region NGC 2264 in the constellation Monoceros. NGC 2264 is a diffuse star cluster that is slowly destroying the gas-dust cloud from which it was formed. A characteristic feature of the Cone Nebula, 2500 light-years from Earth, is a “column” formed by a dark absorbing nebula about seven light-years long and facing away from bright stars.

Such a structure typically occurs in giant clouds of cold molecular gas and dust where new stars form. The newly born bright blue luminaries emit stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation, which helps to “blow” material from the environment. At the same time, gas and dust away from young stars are compressed into dense, dark, elongated columnar forms.

In the image obtained with the FORS2 spectrograph on the VLT, hydrogen gas in the faint emission nebula behind the plume is shown in blue and sulfur gas in red. Hydrogen is ionized by the brightest star NGC 2264 – S Unicorn. Thanks to the filters, the white and blue stars got a golden hue.

The image was taken as part of ESO’s Cosmic Jewels program, an attempt to acquire interesting, intriguing or visually appealing space objects for educational purposes. This uses telescope time that cannot be spent on scientific observations.