Starship Asterisk*

To celebrate 10 years of discovery, the DOE-built DECam unveils thousands of stars shining in and around the Lobster Nebula

Data: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA; Processing: T.A. Rector (Univ of Alaska Anchorage/NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NOIRLab)

---

The 570-megapixel US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera at NOIRLab’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile is one of the most powerful tools in astronomy and astrophysics. To commemorate its first decade of discovery and exploration, NOIRLab has released a stunning image of the Lobster Nebula, a brilliant star-forming region located 8000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Scorpius. The image was unveiled at a conference highlighting DECam’s breakthrough science results.

The Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab, is celebrating 10 years as one of the highest-performance, wide-field CCD imagers in the world.

To help commemorate DECam’s first decade of operation, NOIRLab has released a breathtaking image of the star-forming Lobster Nebula (NGC 6357), which is located about 8000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Scorpius. This image reveals bright, young stars surrounded by billowing clouds of dust and gas.

At the center of the nebula, which spans about 400 light-years, resides the open star cluster Pismis 24 — a collection of dazzlingly bright, massive stars. Surrounding this cluster is a region brimming with newborn stars, protostars still wrapped in their cocoons of star-forming material, and dense cores of gas and dust that will eventually become new stars. The twisting braids of dark clouds and complex structures inside the nebula are formed by the tumultuous pressure of interstellar winds, radiation, and powerful magnetic fields. ...