暗能量相機影到「宇宙版星夜」 南冕座分子雲形狀似梵高名畫！

On July 16, 2026, NSF NOIRLab released a new image of the Corona Australis Molecular Cloud captured by the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile . The image is widely described as evoking Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night due to its swirling clouds, glowing gas, and glittering starfield .

What the image reveals

• Location & distance: The Corona Australis Molecular Cloud is one of the nearest star-forming regions to Earth, roughly 430 light-years away in the constellation Corona Australis (the Southern Crown) . The cloud spans about 16 light-years across .
• NGC 6729 (left side): On the left of the image, the glowing reflection/emission nebula NGC 6729 is illuminated by the young binary star system R Coronae Australis, which consists of a pre-main-sequence star (not yet ignited hydrogen fusion in its core) and a red dwarf companion . The system has an orbital period of about 43–47 years .
• NGC 6723 — the Chandelier Cluster (right side): On the right, the brilliant globular cluster NGC 6723 (nicknamed the Chandelier Cluster) appears in the same field of view, but it is a foreground/background object — actually about 29,000 light-years away and unrelated to the molecular cloud .
• Reflection nebulae: The image also captures the reflection nebulae NGC 6726, NGC 6727, and IC 4812, which glow by scattering the light of embedded young stars .
• Dark dust lanes: Swirling lanes of dark gas and dust — the raw material for star formation — cut across the scene, adding to the van Gogh-like aesthetic .

Scientific importance of the region

The Corona Australis Molecular Cloud is a key laboratory for studying low-mass star formation at very early stages . It hosts:

• Herbig-Haro objects — jets of shocked gas ejected by newborn protostars.
• T Tauri stars — young, pre-main-sequence stars still contracting toward the main sequence.
• Protostars still embedded in their natal cocoons of gas and dust .

Because this cloud is both nearby and rich in young stellar objects, it provides astronomers with a detailed view of the processes that create Sun-like stars.

The Dark Energy Camera (DECam)

• Resolution & detector: DECam is a 570-megapixel mosaic CCD camera built by the Department of Energy for the Dark Energy Survey (DES) . Its focal plane consists of 62 science-grade CCDs (2048×4096 pixels each) plus guide and focus sensors, totaling 74 detector elements .
• Field of view: It has a 2.2-degree diameter field of view (about 3 square degrees) .
• Filters: DECam is outfitted with five specialized optical filters — g, r, i, z, and Y — covering the wavelength range from about 400–1065 nm, enabling precise photometric redshift measurements .
• Telescope: The camera is permanently mounted at the prime focus of the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, a facility of NSF's NOIRLab .

The van Gogh aesthetic

Multiple reports note that the image's swirls of glowing gas, dark dust, and scattered starlight produce a composition "reminiscent of Van Gogh's The Starry Night" . The 570-megapixel resolution captures the texture and color contrast — deep blues, bright oranges, and intricate filamentary structures — that create the painterly effect .

Sources: Fermilab/DES, Space.com, PetaPixel, 163.com (Chinese press), FriendsOfNASA, Wikipedia/Dark Energy Survey