IC 1396A is a dense globule of cold gas and dust winding through the vast IC 1396 emission complex in Cepheus, around 2,400 light-years away. Its winding, trunk-like silhouette — more than 20 light-years long — is sculpted and lit from behind by the massive O-type star HD 206267 at the heart of the complex, whose ultraviolet radiation is slowly photo-evaporating the trunk from the outside in. The glowing rim traces the ionisation front where that radiation eats into the cloud, and the same compression is triggering fresh star formation inside: infrared surveys have revealed protostars less than 100,000 years old buried within the trunk’s head. At over three degrees across, the parent nebula is one of the largest star-forming regions in the northern sky.