IC 2944

High-Res

Object: IC 2944

IC 2944, also known at the Running Chicken Nebula, lies about 6000 light-years distant in the direction of the southern constellation Centaurus. Illuminated by ultraviolet radiation from an open cluster of massive O-type stars, this nebula contains many fine structural details including a collection of dark molecular clouds known as Thackereyís Globules. These interesting features, discovered by South African astronomer David Thackerey in 1950, hold the potential for becoming nucleation sites for stellar genesis.

A number of distinct, named catalog objects make up the Running Chicken. Gum 39 and IC 2872 are the faint nebulae along the upper right side of the image. Gum 41 is the faint nebula in the lower left corner, while the bright, main body of the nebula is composed of IC 2944 and IC 2948. The bright star just up from the center of the image is Lambda Centaurus at magnitude 3.11. A small, round planetary nebula, PNG294-0.1 can be seen in the upper left hand corner. Covering an area over 2∞ x 2∞, IC 2944 ranks as one of the more spectacular objects in the southern skies.