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NOIRLab’s Dark Energy Camera situated at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile has captured a stunning image of the star-forming nebula NGC 6357, also known as the Lobster Nebula.
The Dark Energy Camera was designed specifically to help the Dark Energy Survey discover and understand dark energy, the invisible phenomenon that physicists believe is responsible for accelerating the acceleration of the universe. But as the camera searches for this enigma, it also captures some stunning images of distant cosmic objects.
The latest image released by NOIRLab on September 12 captures the Lobster Nebula, which is about 8,000 light years away from our planet. The Lobster Nebula houses the open star cluster Pismois 24 near its centre, which is home to unusually bright and massive stars, which is revealed further by the image.
Unlike the overwhelming red colour of the rest of the nebula, the areas surrounding these young stars have a slightly bluish glow that is caused by the emission of ionised hydrogen gas from the star-forming regions. The nebula itself is a complex tapestry of gas, dark dust, newly-born stars and stars that are still forming.
The intricate pattern of the nebula is formed due to interstellar winds, radiation pressures, magnetic fields and gravity influencing its shape.
To create this image, the Dark Energy Camera captured multiple images of the Lobster Nebula, with different filters each time. Each image contains a single colour that encompasses a particular range of light waves. After that, imaging specialists took these individual images and assigned a corresponding colour to each of them. They then stacked the images on top of one another to create a composite image that simulates what the nebula would have looked like if it was brighter.
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