Stars, Dust, Pillars, and Jets in the Pelican Nebula

What dark structures arise within the Pelican Nebula? On the whole, the nebula appears like a bird (a pelican) and is seen toward the constellation of a different bird: Cygnus, a Swan. But inside, the Pelican Nebula is a place lit up by new stars and befouled by dark dust. Smoke-sized dust grains start as simple carbon compounds formed in the cool atmospheres of young stars but are dispersed by stellar winds and explosions. Two impressive Herbig-Haro jets are seen emitted by the star HH 555 on the right, and these jets are helping to destroy the light year-long dust pillar that contains it. Other pillars and jets are also visible. The featured image was scientifically-colored to emphasize light emitted by small amounts of heavy elements in a nebula made predominantly of the light elements hydrogen and helium. The Pelican Nebula (IC 5067 and IC 5070) is about 2,000 light-years away and can be found with a small telescope to the northeast of the bright star Deneb.

from NASA https://ift.tt/8Z1XKwc

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Why is our Sun so active now ? No one is sure. An increase in surface activity was expected because our Sun is approaching solar maximum in 2025. However, last month our Sun sprouted more sunspot s than in any month during the entire previous 11-year solar cycle -- and even dating back to 2002. The featured picture is a composite of images taken every day from January to June by NASA 's Solar Dynamic Observatory . Showing a high abundance of sunspots, large individual spots can be tracked across the Sun's disk, left to right, over about two weeks. As a solar cycle continues, sunspots typically appear closer to the equator. Sunspots are just one way that our Sun displays surface activity -- another is flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that expel particles out into the Solar System . Since these particles can affect astronauts and electronics, tracking surface disturbances is of more than aesthetic value . Conversely, solar activity can have very high aesthetic v...

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Peculiar Galaxies of Arp 273

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