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Credit & Copyright: Ariel L. Cappelletti
Explanation:
Dark shapes with bright edges winging their way through dusty
NGC 6188 are tens of light-years long.
The emission nebula is found near the edge of an
otherwise dark and large molecular cloud in the southern
constellation
Ara, about 4,000 light-years away.
Born in
that region only a few million years ago, the massive young
stars of the embedded Ara
OB1 association
sculpt the fantastic shapes and power the nebular glow with
stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation.
The recent star formation itself was likely triggered by
winds and supernova explosions, from previous generations of massive
stars, that swept up and compressed the molecular gas.
The
featured image accumulated over 10 hours through a backyard telescope
in Cö¨rdoba,
Argentina
and was false-colored using the
Hubble palette highlighting emission from
sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms
in red, green, and blue hues.
The field of view spans about four full Moons, corresponding to about 150 light
years at the estimated distance
of NGC 6188.
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A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: emission nebula - molecular cloud - OB association
Publications with words: emission nebula - molecular cloud - OB association
See also: