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Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory have published a striking new picture of the nebula of the "cosmic bat" that sweeps over the hips of Orion.
Credit: ESO
Coming out of the darkness beyond Orion's right hip, a gigantic bat of dust and gas spreads its ghostly wings across the cosmos.
This great beast 2,000 light-years from Earth – a nebula called NGC 1788, nicknamed the "cosmic bat" – is barely visible to the naked eye, but has recently been exposed with remarkable accuracy by astronomers from the European Southern Observatory. [15 Unforgettable Images of Stars]
The cosmic bat is a reflection nebula, which means that it shines "like a fog around a lamppost", as NASA says, by scattering the light of tiny baby stars buried in the depths of the dust of the nebula. These stars are thought to be very young – only a million years old, stellar newborns compared to our 4.6 billion year old sun.
In the bow of the bat's wings, astronomers think they can read the brief history of these young stars. The older ones in the group are positioned to the left side of the nebula, closer to the massive stars of the constellation Orion, while the younger ones gather to the right. ESO scientists believe that this means that the nebula was formed by a wind of stellar winds released over millions of years by the large and warm stars of Orion.
This new image of the bat was released on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of FORS2, a versatile imaging instrument mounted on ESO's very large telescope. This instrument has helped astronomers discover some of the most amazing and strange sights in our cosmic quarter, including a garish portrait of the "Skull and Crossbones" nebula.
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Originally published on Science live.
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