LAMBDA CENTAURI IC 2944 OR RUNNING CHICKEN NEBULA, IC 2944 IN Ha (Roger R. Sanchez Giammattei)

LAMBDA CENTAURI IC 2944 OR RUNNING CHICKEN NEBULA, IC 2944 IN Ha

The IC 2944 nebula, is nicknamed the Chicken Runner Nebula, by the way similar to this one, which some see by being complete with the parts of its brightest region, which sadly were not captured by the field of vision in which it was captured the photo.

In the nebula, located about 6,500 light-years from Earth, hot newborn stars, formed in the clouds of hydrogen, emit an intense ultraviolet glow. This intense radiation in turn stimulates the surrounding hydrogen cloud, making it glow with a characteristic red hue. This red color is typical of star-forming regions, another famous example is the Laguna nebula.

Apart from the glowing gas, another star formation sign in IC 2944 is the series of opaque black spots in some parts of this image as visible among a group of bright stars in the central part of the image. These objects are known as Bok globules (now recognized as Thackeray globules, in honor of the South African astronomer who discovered them in the 1950s) and are dark because they absorb light from the luminous background. Thanks to observations of these dark clouds with infrared telescopes, which are able to see through the dust that normally blocks visible light, it has been found that there are stars forming in many of them.

If the cocoons of stars in Thackeray's globules are still in gestation, the stars of cluster IC 2948, visible inside the nebula, are their older sisters. Still young in stellar terms, with only a few million years old, these stars shine brightly and their ultraviolet radiation provides much of the energy that illuminates the nebula. These bright nebulae live for a short time in astronomical terms (usually a few million years), which means that the Lambda Centauri nebula will eventually fade away as it loses its gas and its source of ultraviolet radiation.

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Description: NEBULOSA LAMBDA CENTAURI, IC 2944 IN Ha, now in False Color with Photoshop (put the pointer on the Photo to see the change)

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