Portrait of NGC 281
Image Credit & Copyright: Ken Crawford (Rancho Del Sol Observatory)
Explanation: Look through the cosmic cloud cataloged as NGC 281 and you might miss the stars of open cluster
IC 1590. Still, formed
within the nebula that cluster's young, massive stars ultimately power the pervasive
nebular glow. The eye-catching shapes looming in
this portrait of NGC 281 are sculpted columns and dense
dust globules seen in silhouette, eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the hot cluster stars. If they survive long enough, the dusty structures could also be sites of future star formation.
Playfully called the Pacman Nebula because of its overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation
Cassiopeia. This sharp composite image was made through
narrow-band filters, combining emission from the nebula's hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms in green, red, and blue hues. It spans over 80 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 281.
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