Image capture nebula where stars are born hundreds of

ADS HERE The Great Telescope Canary Islands, the world's largest infrared telescope has captured an image of the nebula Sharpless 2-106 call, a great cloud of dust and gas located about 2,000 light years away and that may be forming more than a hundred stars.

The Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute said in a statement that this photograph was chosen as the "Astronomy Picture of the Day" by NASA on November 7.

The image was taken with the Very Large Telescope Osiris device is located at the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos in La Palma, one of the islands in the archipelago of the Canaries, by photographer Daniel Lopez.

The nebula Sharpless 2-106, shaped like an hourglass, could easily be mistaken for a bipolar planetary nebula, which represents the final phase of a small star like the Sun

But the opposite is true, adds the Institute in this picture what is contemplated is a great cloud of dust and gas where they could be forming over a hundred stars.

At a distance of 2,000 light years and with a size of about two light years long, this region of star formation is mainly illuminated by a very young star of about 100.000 years old, with a mass equivalent to 15 suns.

In the picture is not well appreciated the star, to be hidden by a relatively dense disk of material, detailing the science center.

This disc appears to be responsible for the unique shape of the nebula, as the starlight would be absorbed by the disk in the equatorial direction but could escape by ionizing the gas poles above and below the disc and leading to the two regions that are illuminated.

The flash of six vertices that can be seen in the brightest stars of the picture is one of the hallmarks that prints the special structure of the Great Canary Telescope with hexagonal mirrors. ADS HERE