Gum 39 is one of several nebulae in a vast stellar nursery called the Running Chicken Nebula (IC 2944), which is located about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus. This VST image shows the nebula Gum 39. Image credit: ESO / VPHAS+ Survey. This image of Gum 39 is actually only a tiny part of a 1.5-billion-pixel image of the Running Chicken Nebula. The data for this gigantic image were captured by ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST). “It...
