Stars and Dust in the Pacman Nebula.

Stars can create huge and intricate dust sculptures from the dense and dark molecular cloud s from which they are born. The tools the stars use to carve their detailed works are high energy light and fast stellar winds . The heat they generate evaporates the dark molecular dust as well as causing ambient hydrogen gas to disperse and glow . Pictured here , a new open cluster of stars designated IC 1590 is nearing completion around the intricate interstellar dust structures in the emission nebula NGC 281 , dubbed the Pac-man Nebula because of its overall shape . The dust cloud just above center is classified as a Bok Globule as it may gravitationally collapse and form a star -- or stars. The Pacman Nebula lies about 10,000 light years away toward the constellation of Cassiopeia .