* Image acquisition by:
Thomas Richter.
* Processing: Ruben Barbosa.
About 2,400 light-years away from Earth, in the direction of the Cepheus constellation, there is a cluster of stars called IC 1396.
A concentration of interstellar gas and dust surrounds it. A close look reveals a darker elongated area with a glow, commonly called the Elephant's Trunk, because it shows itself curled up at one end. This structure is just over 20 light-years in length.
The lower part exhibits brightness glow that results from the ionization of the hydrogen caused by a very bright and massive star that is there very close.
It is estimated that the Elephant Trunk Nebula contains a number of young stars (less than 100,000 years old), which will have arisen due to the pressure of the gas from the wind of the new stars, a situation corroborated by observations of the darker clouds (raw material of the star formation), realized in the band of the infrared and where proto-stars were detected.
The central zone of the trunk end contains less gas; this situation may be related to the effect of the powerful winds coming from the massive stars, which will be pushing the surrounding gas to the periphery of the globule, simultaneously contributing to the maintenance of the circular symmetry.
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