nebula · NGC 2174
Monkey Head Nebula
NGC 2174 in Orion is an emission nebula and star-forming region around 6,400 light-years away. Its sculpted pillars and cavities are driven by ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from the young cluster NGC 2175 embedded within. Hubble Space Telescope imagery of its pillars — evocative of those in the Eagle Nebula — revealed them to be dense columns of gas being slowly photo-evaporated from the outside in.