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This cavernous nebula is home to a bundle of young stars, specifically a triple system of T-Tauri stars. These are stars that are young, less than 100 million years old, and which haven’t yet ignited nuclear fusion reactions within their core. Instead, their light comes from the heat of gravitational contraction.
T-Tauri stars are named after the eponymous protostar, which is found in the constellation of Taurus, the Bull. By coincidence, these T-Tauri stars, collectively labelled as HP Tau, are also in Taurus and have been imaged here by the Nicholas U. Mayall four-metre telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. All three stars can be clearly seen, located 550 light years away and ensconced in this eerie nebula. It is not their birth nebula, but a cloud of dust that is reflecting the light of the stars of HP Tau, hence we call it a reflection nebula.
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