This is the tip of the Cone Nebula, two and a half light years long and silhouetted against a bright red emission nebula. This opaque pillar of gas and dust is 2,500 light years away and appears in a rich star-forming region in the constellation Monoceros. It is mostly dark - it is only visible because of the bright background - but the tip of the cone is illuminated by ultraviolet radiation from nearby young stars. The picture was taken in 2002 by the new Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope.