APOD 4.4

Known as the Elephants Trunk Nebula, this dark and menacing dust nebula resides in IC 1396. Many of the stars shown in the picture are bright, and young. Many of them exude a great deal of energy, so much so in fact that the dark cloud is slowly being dispersed. Waves of energy and particles streaming off of these stars is slowly blasting away all the dust that makes up the nebula. This particular cloud is part of a much larger nebula, that faintly spans nearly 10 full moons in the night sky.