An Unusual Globule in IC 1396
			
		
		
		
			Is there a monster in IC 1396?  
Known to some as the 
Elephant's Trunk Nebula, parts of gas and 
dust clouds of this 
star formation region 
may appear to take on foreboding forms, some 
nearly human.  
The only real 
monster here, however, is a 
bright young star too far from Earth to hurt us.  
Energetic light from this star is eating away the dust of the dark 
cometary globule near the top of the 
above image.  
Jets and 
winds of particles 
emitted from this star are also pushing away ambient gas and 
dust. 
Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the relatively faint 
IC 1396 complex covers a much larger region on the 
sky than shown here, with an apparent width of more than 10 
full moons.