Starship Asterisk*

The image above is very helpful in clarifying what we are seeing. I would be most interested in a IR of the elbow of the dust lane - just below the inset image above if anyone has access to that.

I thought of dust lanes, but they would have to form a remarkable 'check-mark' shape that I thought unusual or unlikely.

I was hoping someone could shed light on the apparent fracture in the Carina Nebula. It appears as if the Nebula was divided, much like continental drift divided Latin America and Africa. Is this an optical coincidence or are there forces in the Nebula that led to the fractured appearance that is ev...