Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Monoceros (Mon)  ·  Contains:  Christmas Tree Cluster  ·  NGC 2264  ·  The star 15Mon
IC1396 The Elephant Trunk Nebula, AlBroxton
IC1396 The Elephant Trunk Nebula
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IC1396 The Elephant Trunk Nebula

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Description

The Elephant's Trunk nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust in the star cluster IC1396 – an ionized gas region located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth. The Elephant's Trunk nebula is now thought to be a site of star formation, containing several very young (less than 100,000 yr) stars that were discovered in infrared images in 2003. Two older (but still young, a couple of million years, by the standards of stars, which live for billions of years) stars are present in a small, circular cavity in the head of the globule. Winds from these young stars may have emptied the cavity. The bright rim is the surface of the dense cloud that is being illuminated and ionized by a very bright, massive star that is just to the west of IC1396A. (In the Figure above, the massive star is just to the left of the edge of the image.) The entire IC1396 region is ionized by the massive star, except for dense globules that can protect themselves from the star's harsh ultraviolet rays.

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  • IC1396 The Elephant Trunk Nebula, AlBroxton
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    IC1396 The Elephant Trunk Nebula, AlBroxton
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IC1396 The Elephant Trunk Nebula, AlBroxton

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Allen Broxton