Zintkála Nuni – The Baby Eagle Nebula (LBN 777) in the Taurus Molecular Cloud Complex

Zintkála Nuni(https://sdpb.sd.gov/lostbird/summary.asp) means “lost bird” in the Lakota language. It was the name given to a surviving infant found among the bodies at Wounded Knee in 1890 four days after the massacre.

Her life story is a tragic one. She was taken—actually kidnapped—and adopted by General Leonard Colby as a trophy of the massacre and raised in his dysfunctional household. He sexually abused her for years, and historians believe she contracted syphilis at a young age from that abuse. She went on to work as a Hollywood extra in several early silent films and as a prostitute, among other things.

She was married three times and had three children. Two of the three children died very young and the third was given up for adoption, his fate unknown. In addition to her work in cinema, Zintkála worked in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, and she was active in the women’s suffrage movement. She died in 1920, likely from the syphilis that had ravaged her for decades.

The Baby Eagle, alone and surrounded by a tumultuous maelstrom of dust and gas, makes me think of her story. It therefore serves as a reminder of what a charmed life I lead with the luxury of being able to pursue things like music and astrophotography. It’s also a reminder that while we, as a collective human organism, have come a long way, we still have very far to go.

The image above is a two-panel mosaic that shows a fairly wide swath of the Taurus Molecular Cloud complex about 400 light years away. The area is filled with red streaks of ionized hydrogen as well as dark, chocolate-colored molecular clouds. These clouds contain many different complex molecules, some of them organic. We’re able to see these clouds only because they reflect the light of nearby stars. The Taurus Molecular Cloud is one of the closest stellar nurseries and astronomers continually study it to learn more about stellar formation and evolution.

One of those chocolate clouds, catalogued as LBN 777, has become known as the Baby Eagle Nebula:

Another notable object in the frame is the tiny (in this image) vdB 25 is a faint blue reflection nebula 526 light years away: