This is an image of an HII region (Sh2-239) and a dark nebula (LDN 1551), both located 500 light years away in the constellation of Taurus. The dark nebula spans about 3 light-years. The highlight of the image to me are the jet outflows from Herbig-Haro objects, 11 of which are identified on the annotated mouseover. Many of these objects are red due to ionized hydrogen gas, which is their typical color, but quite a bit of yellow is also seen in the image. I assume that the yellow color is due to the reflection of star color in the nebula.
I enjoyed this quote from Jason Major of Universe Today about this object - "Like very young humans, very young stars also tend to make a big mess out of the stuff around them — except in the case of stars it’s not crayon on the walls and Legos on the floor, but rather huge blasts of superheated material that are launched from their poles far out into space. HH 151 is embedded within the larger star-forming region LDN 1551, a stellar nursery full of dust, dark nebulae, newborn stars. (Hey, if baby stars are going to make a mess at least they can do it in the nursery!)"
This object is part of a broader cloud that includes the wonderful
NGC 1555.
@Brandon Tackett recently posted a beautiful wide view of this region
here.
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