The Lagoon Nebula | Hubble

The Lagoon Nebula | Hubble

To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space back in 2018, the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing and colorful image of the Lagoon Nebula. The whole nebula, about 4,000 light-years away, is an incredible 55 light-years wide and 20 light-years tall. This image shows only a small part of this turbulent star-formation region, about four light-years across. The Lagoon Nebula is classified as an emission nebula in the H II region.

This stunning nebula was first catalogued in 1654 by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna, who sought to record nebulous objects in the night sky so they would not be mistaken for comets. Since Hodierna’s observations, the Lagoon Nebula has been photographed and analysed by many telescopes and astronomers all over the world. 

The observations were taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 between February 12-18, 2018.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)

Release Date: April 19, 2018

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