Skip to main content

See the dark pillar of the Cone Nebula captured by the Very Large Telescope

A stunning image of a distant nebula has been taken using the Very Large Telescope. The Cone Nebula, located 2,700 light-years away in the constellation of Monoceros (the Unicorn), is huge in size at 7 light-years long. The Cone Nebula is next to the beautiful Christmas Tree cluster, also known as NGC 2264.

The image was shared by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in celebration of its formation 60 years ago. ESO operates ground-based telescopes in Chile including the Very Large Telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, and the New Technology Telescope.

The Cone Nebula.
The Cone Nebula is part of a star-forming region of space, NGC 2264, about 2500 light-years away. Its pillar-like appearance is a perfect example of the shapes that can develop in giant clouds of cold molecular gas and dust, known for creating new stars. This dramatic new view of the nebula was captured with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), and released on the occasion of ESO’s 60th anniversary. ESO

The Very Large Telescope was able to capture this image using its FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) instrument which operates in the visible light wavelength. Using different filters, different elements can be color-coded so that in this image hydrogen is seen in blue and sulfur in red. The bright yellow-looking stars in the image would normally appear blue as they are very young and bright, being born in the swirl of dust and gas of the nebula.

Recommended Videos

“The Cone Nebula is a perfect example of the pillar-like shapes that develop in the giant clouds of cold molecular gas and dust, known for creating new stars,” ESO writes. “This type of pillar arises when massive, newly formed bright blue stars give off stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation that blow away the material from their vicinity. As this material is pushed away, the gas and dust further away from the young stars gets compressed into dense, dark and tall pillar-like shapes. This process helps create the dark Cone Nebula, pointing away from the brilliant stars in NGC 2264.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
This beautiful nebula holds a starry mystery at its heart
This image, taken with the VLT Survey Telescope hosted at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, shows the beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg. The nebula is a cloud of gas and dust surrounding a pair of stars called HD 148937.

A gorgeous nebula turns out to hold a surprise at its center: a pair of stars that don't match as they should. Researchers looking at the beautiful NGC 6164/6165 nebula were surprised to learn that one of the pair of stars it hosts appears to be much older than the other, giving clues to the dramatic situation in which the nebula was born.

Pairs of stars aren't unusual in nebulae, but they are typically very similar. Normally, you would expect a pair to be similar in terms of age and mass, as they would have formed around the same time. But in this nebula, located 3,800 light-years away, one member of the pair is 1.5 million years older than the other, and the younger star is also magnetic, unlike its older counterpart.

Read more
See planets being born in new images from the Very Large Telescope
This composite image shows the MWC 758 planet-forming disc, located about 500 light-years away in the Taurus region, as seen with two different facilities. The yellow colour represents infrared observations obtained with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). The blue regions on the other hand correspond to observations performed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

Astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope to peer into the disks of matter from which exoplanets form, looking at more than 80 young stars to see which may have planets forming around them. This is the largest study to date on these planet-forming disks, which are often found within the same huge clouds of dust and gas that stars form within.

A total of 86 young stars were studied in three regions known to host star formation: Taurus and Chamaeleon I, each located around 600 light-years away, and Orion, a famous stellar nursery located around 1,600 light-years away. The researchers took images of the disks around the stars, looking at their structures for clues about how different types of planets can form.

Read more
See a festive cosmic chicken captured by the VLT Survey Telescope
The Running Chicken Nebula comprises several clouds, all of which we can see in this vast image from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), hosted at ESO’s Paranal site. This 1.5-billion pixel image spans an area in the sky of about 25 full Moons. The clouds shown in wispy pink plumes are full of gas and dust, illuminated by the young and hot stars within them.

A new image from the VLT Survey Telescope shows a beautiful region called the Running Chicken Nebula, which makes for a striking festive scene. Located 6,500 light-years away, this region is full of bright young stars that sculpt the clouds of dust and gas around them to form complex structures.

The Running Chicken Nebula comprises several clouds, all of which we can see in this vast image from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), hosted at European Southern Observatory’s Paranal site. This 1.5-billion-pixel image spans an area in the sky of about 25 full moons. The clouds shown in wispy pink plumes are full of gas and dust, and are illuminated by the young and hot stars within them. ESO/VPHAS+ team. Acknowledgement: CASU

Read more