The Pipe Nebula is a dark cloud in Ophiuchus shaped like a smoker’s pipe, a silhouette of dust against the bright star clouds of the Galactic centre.
At a glance
| type | nebula |
|---|---|
| distance from the Sun | 473 light-years (145 pc) |
| its light left it | 473 years ago |
| size in the piece | about 46 light-years acrossmodel |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with. Model marks a property of the piece’s galaxy model rather than a measurement.
About Pipe Nebula
Against the dense star fields towards the centre of the Milky Way, a chain of dark clouds traces a stem and a bowl. Several of them appear in Barnard’s catalogue of dark nebulae, and with neighbouring clouds the Pipe forms part of the larger figure known as the Dark Horse.
For all its mass, the Pipe is remarkably quiet. Only the stem shows clear signs of star formation, with a small group of young stars at one end. The rest is scattered with dense cores that have not yet begun to collapse, which makes the cloud a place to study the conditions just before stars form.
What you see in the piece
Stand on Earth with HUMAN EYE and look towards Sagittarius and Ophiuchus: it is the dark shape cut out of the brightest part of the Milky Way.
Questions
How far away is the Pipe Nebula?
The Pipe Nebula is about 473 light-years (145 pc) from the Sun.
Can you see the Pipe Nebula with the naked eye?
Yes, from a dark site: it is a dark silhouette against the bright Milky Way near the border of Ophiuchus and Sagittarius.