A stunning new image depicts a red nebula located 7,300 light-years away from Earth.
Nebulae are gas clouds that are birthing grounds to hot newborn stars, they are particularly prevalent in the Centaurus (The Centaur) constellation where the image was taken, a European Southern Observatory (ESO) news release reported.
Intense radiation coming from the newborn stars is what causes the brilliant red color seen in the image.
The object pictured above is dubbed Gum 41 after Australian astronomer Colin Gum, who discovered and documented the object in his catalogue of 84 emission nebulae published in 1955.
The nebula is actually a piece of a larger structure of gas clouds called the Lambda Centauri Nebula, or the "Running Chicken Nebula."
"In this picture of Gum 41, the clouds appear to be quite thick and bright, but this is actually misleading. If a hypothetical human space traveller could pass through this nebula, it is likely that they would not notice it as - even at close quarters - it would be too faint for the human eye to see," the news release reported.
This phenomenon could explain why the object was not discovered until the mid-twentieth century to be discovered; the object's light is "spread very thinly" and the red glow is not very visible. Gum first noticed the nebula in pictures taken from the Mount Stromlo Observatory near Canberra, the news release reported.
This new portrait of Gum 41 may be the best ever taken of this "elusive object."
The image was taken using the "Wide Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile," the news release reported.
The image is actually made up of a series of images taken through "blue, green, and red filters." The images were also taken through a specialized filter meant to highlight the red glow from the hydrogen.
