Filament of Cosmic Dust

This image is from the APEX telescope and shows part of the Taurus Molecular Cloud. The filament of cosmic dust is more than ten light years long and has newborn stars hidden within. Dense clouds of gas are about to collapse to form more stars. The dust grains within the cloud are so cold that observations at submillimeter wavelengths, taken by the LABOCA camera on APEX, are needed to detect their glow.

The image is of two regions in the cloud: the upper right of the filament is Barnard 211, while the lower-left part is Barnard 213. The orange tones within the filament show the heat glow of the cosmic dust grains and represent submillimeter-wavelength observations from the LABOCA camera on APEX. These observations were superimposed on a visible-light image of the region. The bright star above the filament is φ Tauri.