Meet the 'giant elephant trunks,' mysterious cosmic structures 10 times bigger than the 'pillars of creation'
September 05, 2019 at 05:00 AM EDT
Ursa Major, the Tadpole Galaxy, the Crab Nebula — when it comes to naming objects in space, it sometimes seems like astronomers wish they'd gone into zoology. Continuing in this long tradition, a researcher has recently identified mammoth column-shaped structures carved from gas and dust that he has called Giant Elephant's Trunks.