Explanation:
The Cocoon Nebula is home to a newly forming star cluster. The beautiful nebula, catalogued as IC 5146, is nearly 15 light-years wide. It towers high in the northern summer night sky and is located about 4,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. Like other star-forming regions, it stands out for its red, glowing hydrogen gas excited by young, hot stars and for dust-reflected starlight at the edge of an otherwise invisible molecular cloud. In fact, the bright star located near the center of this nebula is likely only a few hundred thousand years old, powering the nebula’s glow while clearing a cavity in the molecular cloud’s star-forming dust and gas. A 48-hour integration yielded this exceptionally deep color view, tracing tantalizing features within and around the dusty stellar nursery.