APOD 4.4

April 25th, 2011                                Monsters of IC 1396

IC 1396, or better known as the Elephants Trunk Nebula, is said to take the appearance of a human look object.  The glowing gas and dust cloud of the star provide the foreboding arms since it is located in a star formation area.  However, while the appearance of a monster's face may scare onlookers, the only true threat is the star inside of the Nebula that is too far from Earth to even pose a threat.  The bright young star inside produces energetic light that eats away at the dust of the dark cometary globule present in the upper right hand corner of the photograph, as can be seen by the glowing line working its way toward the core.  Jets and winds of particles emitted from the star are pushing away the nearby ambient gas and dust and providing for this pathway.  Located 3,000 light-years away, the IC 1396 Nebula looks extremely faint and spans a great distance across the sky.  It is believed that over 100 young stars have been noted to be developing inside of the great Nebula.