---------------------------------http://www.universetoday.com/2008/07/07/the-cosmic-cocoon-ic-5146-by-tom-v-davis/ wrote: <<Roughly 4000 light years away in some of the richest star fields in the northern Cygnus Milky Way, lies IC 5146. Discovered by Thomas Espin, it has often been referred to as the "Cocoon" because it lay at the end of a long and fairly starless trail - like the proverbial worm who ate its way to the end of the leaf before time for change.
http://www.ricksastro.com/DSOs/cocoon-h16.shtml >>
Emily Dickinson » XXV. Cocoon.
DRAB habitation of whom?
Tabernacle or tomb,
Or dome of worm,
Or porch of gnome,
Or some elf's catacomb?
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Emily Dickinson » VI. From the Chrysalis.
My cocoon tightens, colors tease,
I'm feeling for the air;
A dim capacity for wings
Degrades the dress I wear.
A power of butterfly must be
The aptitude to fly,
Meadows of majesty concedes
And easy sweeps of sky.
So I must baffle at the hint
And cipher at the sign,
And make much blunder, if at last
I take the clew divine.
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http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070104.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap081107.html
---------------------------------http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060507.html wrote: Explanation: Like a butterfly, a white dwarf star begins its life by casting off a cocoon that enclosed its former self. In this analogy, however, the Sun would be a caterpillar and the ejected shell of gas would become the prettiest of all! In the above cocoon, the planetary nebula designated NGC 2440, contains one of the hottest white dwarf stars known. The white dwarf can be seen as the bright dot near the photo's center. Our Sun will eventually become a "white dwarf butterfly", but not for another 5 billion years.
Emily Dickinson » The Butterfly's Day.
From cocoon forth a butterfly
As lady from her door
Emerged -- a summer afternoon --
Repairing everywhere,
Without design, that I could trace,
Except to stray abroad
On miscellaneous enterprise
The clovers understood.
Her pretty parasol was seen
Contracting in a field
Where men made hay, then struggling hard
With an opposing cloud,
Where parties, phantom as herself,
To Nowhere seemed to go
In purposeless circumference,
As 't were a tropic show.
And notwithstanding bee that worked,
And flower that zealous blew,
This audience of idleness
Disdained them, from the sky,
Till sundown crept, a steady tide,
And men that made the hay,
And afternoon, and butterfly,
Extinguished in its sea.
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http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971021.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050612.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap011028.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990614.html
