CG 4
| Molecular cloud | |
|---|---|
| Bok globule | |
|
|
| Observation data | |
| Distance | 1,300 ly |
| Constellation | Puppis |
| Notable features | 1.5 light-years in diameter (head) and 8 light-years long (tail) |
| Designations | God's Hand |
CG4 is a star-forming region located in the Puppis constellation, which is about 1,300 light-years away from earth.[1]
Commonly referred to as God's Hand, it is about 1,300 light years from Earth with its head about 1.5 light-years in diameter, and its tail about eight light-years long.[2]
It is a cometary globule, one side of which has been blown outwards into a long tail, resembling a comet and hence named so. CG4, and the nearby cometary globules, generally point away from the supernova remnant of Vela, located at the center of the Gum Nebula.[3]
Discovery
In 1976, photographs from the Schmidt Telescope—operated by the Australian Astronomical Observatory—showed several objects resembling comets, located in the Gum Nebula, an emission nebula of the constellation. Due to their particular shape, these objects came to be known as cometary globules. Each globule has a dense, dark, ruptured head and a very long tail, with the latter pointing away from the Vela supernova remnant. As a part of the ESO Cosmic Gems program, European Southern Observatory released an image of CG4 in January 2015 showing the head of the nebula.[4]
Structure
The head of cometary globule CG4 resembles a comet with a dusty cavernous mouth, as photographed by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in 2015.[5] Composed of relatively dense, dark matter, it is an opaque structure that is being illuminated by the glow of a nearby star.[6] An obscure red glow limning the globule is possibly caused by emission from ionized hydrogen. The mouth of the globule appears to be ready to consume the edge-on spiral galaxy ESO 257-19, located in the upper left corner of the image. In reality, the galaxy is over a hundred million light-years further away from the globule.[7]
References
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