One of the most important mysteries in cosmology immediately is what precisely the universe is made up of. We know that the entire atypical matter within the universe makes up simply 5% of the full universe, with the remaining being made up of theoretical constructs: 27% of the universe is darkish matter, and 68% is darkish power. We know that darkish matter and darkish power should exist as a result of we see their results, however neither has ever been measured immediately.

So to study extra about darkish power, a global large-scale survey referred to as the Dark Energy Survey was launched to map out a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of galaxies. Between 2013 and 2019 a collaboration of researchers used a purpose-built device referred to as the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Victor M. Blanco Telescope situated within the Chilean Andes for these observations. But for the reason that survey has come to an finish, the Dark Energy Camera hasn’t been idle — it’s now used for analysis right into a number of astronomical matters, and it was just lately used to seize this gorgeous picture of the Lobster Nebula.

This 400-light-year-wide nebula is situated round 8,000 light-years away from Earth within the constellation of Scorpius. This cloud of mud and fuel is illuminated by brilliant, younger stars, with a very brilliant set of large stars in a cluster referred to as Pismis 24 within the coronary heart of the nebula. The interactions of those large stars, the youthful stars forming round them, and the clumps of mud and fuel which is able to finally type one other era of stars all add to the complicated, billowing form of the nebula.

Capturing these totally different options was attainable because of the Dark Energy Camera’s vary of filters. “This image was constructed using some of a new range of very special DECam narrowband filters, which isolate very specific wavelengths of light,” NOIRLab explains. “They make it possible to infer the physics of distant objects, including important details about their inner motions, temperatures, and complex chemistry, which is especially important when examining star-forming regions like the Lobster Nebula.”

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