Cometary globule have nothing to do with comet . They are nebulae with retentive tails of gas and detritus being shaped and stripped by the hot ionized fabric around them – and the Dark Energy Camera has find a spectacular example of one .
Located in the constellation of Puppis – translate in Latin to " crap deck " – the cometic globule has been given the name CG 4 . It extends for about eight clear - class and its head is 1.5 light-headed - years across – we are read " head " because we are see a resemblance to Shai - Hulud , the giant worms fromDune , but the astronomers in the team are foretell this formation God ’s Hand .
cometic globules are a special character ofBok Globulesthat have been know since 1976 . But even after 50 year , they remain super unmanageable to observe . The intellect for this is that the gas and dust are very dark . Your standard telescope bugger off these dark nebula blur with the darkness of the universe – but a filter can reveal it .
TheDark Energy Camerahas a Hydrogen - alpha filter which pick the wispy glow of ionized H . This emission is the scarlet glow beleaguer the cometary globule , the more distant background field , and the chief nebula from which the globule is extending . H particle get excited by the energetic brightness level of a live massive star or prima target . This energy can make them glow with the discharge of a specific light
The light of those whizz is not only ionizing the hydrogen , but it is also sculpture the cometic globule . In finical , it is destroy the head / hand component part of it . There is enough material in the head to form several new Sun - sizedstars , but it is a race against sentence as to whether that many will form before the head is destroy as the header is being destroyed and heated but to make new stars you involve a nerveless stable swarm .
The cometic globules are recover throughout the Milky Way , but this special region known as the Gum Nebula has 32 cometic globules . This is believed to be the expanding stiff of a supernova burst that rent office about a million years ago . And it is a famous one : theVela pulsar . All the cometary globules appear to have tails pointing off from it , probably sculpture by its vivid radiation .
Near the mouth of the gargantuan dirt ball , there is a distant galaxy that looks like it is about to be run through . In reality , ESO 257 - 19 ( PGC 21338 ) is more than 100 million light - years away from CG 4 . The gum tree nebula is 1,470 light - year off .
