Carina Nebula Landscapes | Hubble

Carina Nebula Landscapes | Hubble

[Top] - An approximately one-light-year tall "pillar" of cold hydrogen towers above the wall of the molecular cloud. The 2.5-million-year-old star cluster called Trumpler 14 appears at the right side of the image. A small nugget of cold molecular hydrogen, called a Bok globule, is silhouetted against the star cluster.

[Middle] - Detailed view of the central portion of the Carina Nebula near the so-called Keyhole Nebula.

[Bottom] - These great clouds of cold hydrogen resemble summer afternoon thunderheads. They tower above the surface of a molecular cloud on the edge of the nebula. So-called "elephant trunk" pillars resist being heated and eaten away by blistering ultraviolet radiation from the nebula's brightest stars.

Credit: NASA, European Space Agency, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Release Date: April 24, 2007

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