NOIRLab has published a mesmerizing image taken by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). It shows the dark nebula Circinus West resembling a puddle of celestial ink.
Circinus West is part of a larger molecular cloud located about 2,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Circulus. It spans 180 light-years across and has a mass 250,000 times that of the Sun. Such regions are also called stellar cradles. They are so dense and cold that the atoms in them combine to form molecules, which then serve as building material for forming stars and exoplanets.
Some of the molecular clouds, like Circinus West, are so dense that visible light cannot pass through them. That’s why they’re called dark nebulae. We can only see them because of their fuzzy silhouette against the visible light of more distant objects.
The Circinus West nebula is known for being home to dozens of young stellar objects — stars in the early stages of development. Despite being shrouded in dense gas and dust, these protostars make themselves known. As you zoom in, you can see various signs of their presence.
One such sign is the occasional pockets of light breaking through the murky clouds. This light comes from actively forming stars, and the cavities around them are carved by molecular streams — powerful jets of matter ejected from protostars. These energetic streams are much easier for astronomers to find than the stars themselves, and they are a powerful tool for studying stellar nurseries.
Many bright spots in dark clouds indicate the location of young stars that have ejected their surrounding matter. Multiple sources of emission are visible in the central black plume of Circinus West, a region known as the Cir-MMS region, which faintly resembles an arm extended downward with long shadowy fingers. Near the center of this region, the radiation from the newborn star carves a cavity within the non transparent cloud. And at the far left of the center cloud, another star announces its birth with a flare of light.
Another sign of star formation that Circinus West has no shortage of is Herbig-Haro objects. In the DECam image, they can be identified as luminous red spots usually found near newborn stars. They form when fast-moving gas ejected by stars collides with slower gas in the surrounding interstellar medium. Astronomers have found many Herbig-Haro objects in Circinus West that stand out against the dark clouds.
For astronomers, Circinus West is a natural laboratory. Its study provides valuable insights into the star formation process and also shows how young stars affect their surroundings. The processes taking place there may even resemble the conditions under which the solar system formed, providing a glimpse into the processes that led to our emergence in the universe.
According to NOIRLab
