Employees at the NOIRLab research center have published a new image taken by the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam). It shows the ominous Chamaeleon I dark cloud, through which the light of three reflective nebulae shines.
Chamaeleon I is the closest star-forming region to Earth, located 500 light-years away. The age of this dark cloud is estimated to be approximately two billion years, and it contains about 200–300 stars. Our Solar System also once formed inside a cloud of cold gas and dust, which did not differ greatly from Chamaeleon I in appearance.
In the center of the DECam image, shining brightly from within dense cosmic dust, is one of the main attractions of Chamaeleon I — the reflective nebula Cederblad 111. Reflective nebulae are clouds of gas and dust that do not emit their own light, but glow by reflecting the light of nearby stars. This occurs in the vicinity of newborn stars that are not hot enough to excite hydrogen atoms in the cloud, as is the case with emission nebulae. Instead, their light is reflected by particles inside the cloud.
Cederblad 110, the second reflection nebula in Chamaeleon I, is visible just above Cederblad 111 and has a recognizable C-shape. Similar to Cederblad 111, Cederblad 110 is located near an area of low-mass star formation, whose light is scattered by nebula particles. This reflection creates a bright area in the middle of the opaque clouds.
Below the pair of reflection nebulae lies the orange infrared Chamaeleon Nebula, somewhat reminiscent of a butterfly with one wing. It is the product of fast-moving gas streams ejected from a newborn low-mass star at the center of the nebula. These streams cut a tunnel through the interstellar cloud. Infrared and visible radiation passes through this tunnel and scatters off its walls, forming a reflective nebula.
Astronomers have also discovered numerous Herbig-Haro objects. They occur when ionized gas jets ejected from newborn stars collide with slow-moving gas in the surrounding cloud. One of these structures can be seen as a tiny, faint red spot lying in the dusty space between Cederblad 111 and Cederblad 110.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that Chamaeleon I is a small part of a larger complex that occupies almost the entire southern constellation of the same name. It also includes the dark clouds of Chamaeleon II and Chamaeleon III, in which active star formation is virtually absent.
Earlier, we reported on how the Dark Energy Camera photographed the cosmic landscape in the constellation Antlia.
According to NOIRLab
