The Cocoon Nebula wraps you in its warm embrace

BECAUSE IT’S A FUCKING COCOON! LOL!?~? Get it? Ah, whatever. Here is Phil Plait explaining what’s going down in this wonderful fucking picture.

Bad Astronomy:

This photo was taken by “amateur” astronomer Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn, using a 20 cm Astro-Tech RC telescope, and is a total of nearly nine hours of exposure through various filters.

What it shows is the famed Cocoon Nebula, also called IC 5146. What you’re seeing is actually a cluster of young stars called Collinder 470, which is roughly 2,500 light-years away. And I do mean young; the bright star in the center of the nebula is only about 100,000 years old. Compare that to the Sun’s 4,560,000,000 years, and you’ll understand why these stars are mere whippersnappers.*

Stars form from clouds of gas and dust, and there are both in plenty here. The dark dust is strewn everywhere in this picture; you can see it as gray or black diffuse clouds. Note that where it lies, swaths of stars appear red; dust scatters away or absorbs blue light, letting only red light through. Most of the stars you see glowing ruddily in the dust are literally in that dust, or behind it.

But the bloom of the rose in this photo is obviously the bright pink nebula itself. The star in the center, called BD+46°3474, is a hot, massive B-type star. It’s a beast, five times the diameter of the Sun, 15 times its mass, and a brutal 20,000 times as luminous. Replace the Sun with BD+46 and the Earth would be a smoking ruin.

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