The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the ionized gas region IC 1396, located in the constellation Cepheus about 2400 light-years from Earth. The part of the nebula shown in my photo is the dark dense globule vdB 142, commonly referred to as the Elephant’s Trunk nebula due to its appearance at visible light wavelengths, where there is a dark spot with a bright, sinuous edge . The bright edge is the surface of the dense cloud that is illuminated and ionized by a very bright and massive star (HD 206267) located just east of vdB 142.
The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula is thought to be a site of star formation, containing several very young stars (less than 100,000 years old) that were discovered in infrared images from 2003. Two older stars are present in a small circular cavity in the head of the globule. The winds from these young stars may have emptied the cavity.
The combined action of the light from the massive star ionizing and compressing the edge of the cloud and the wind from the young stars moving the gas outward from the center lead to a very high compression in the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula. This pressure triggered the current generation of protostars.