Pan on Circinus West

A celestial shadow known as the Circinus West molecular cloud creeps across this image taken with the Department of Energy-fabricated 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) — one of the most powerful digital cameras in the world. Within this stellar nursery's opaque boundaries, infant stars ignite from cold, dense gas and dust, while outflows hurtle leftover material into space.

DECam is mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab.

Credit:

Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA/N. Bartmann (NSF NOIRLab)

Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), D. de Martin & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)

Music: Composed and produced by Konstantino Polizois

About the Video

Id:noirlab2515a
Release date:April 24, 2025, 2 p.m.
Related releases:noirlab2515
Duration:59 s
Frame rate:29.97

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