Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                 2020 May 25

                   Mystic Mountain Monster being Destroyed
     Image Credit: Hubble, NASA, ESA; Processing & License: Judy Schmidt

   Explanation: Inside the head of this interstellar monster is a star
   that is slowly destroying it. The huge monster, actually an inanimate
   series of pillars of gas and dust, measures light years in length. The
   in-head star is not itself visible through the opaque interstellar dust
   but is bursting out partly by ejecting opposing beams of energetic
   particles called Herbig-Haro jets. Located about 7,500 light years away
   in the Carina Nebula and known informally as Mystic Mountain, the
   appearance of these pillars is dominated by dark dust even though they
   are composed mostly of clear hydrogen gas. The featured image was taken
   with the Hubble Space Telescope. All over these pillars, the energetic
   light and winds from massive newly formed stars are evaporating and
   dispersing the dusty stellar nurseries in which they formed. Within a
   few million years, the head of this giant, as well as most of its body,
   will have been completely evaporated by internal and surrounding stars.

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                Tomorrow's picture: Higher than the Himalayas
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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