Messier 17 Nebula: Wide-field infrared view | European Southern Observatory

Messier 17 Nebula: Wide-field infrared view | European Southern Observatory

This image has a small wispy gas cloud at its center. The cloud is orange and pink, its tendrils getting less opaque and more blue to the left. It is surrounded by thousands of tiny dotted blue, orange and yellow stars, very densely packed, giving the background a blue hue. There are darker patches all over the image where fewer stars are showing.

This image shows a detailed infrared view of Messier 17, also known as the Omega Nebula or Swan Nebula, a stellar nursery located about 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. 

This image is part of a record-breaking infrared map of the Milky Way containing more than 1.5 billion objects. The European Southern Observatory’s VISTA―the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy―captured the images with its infrared camera VIRCAM. The data were gathered as part of the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) survey and its companion project, the VVV eXtended survey (VVVX).

Credit: ESO/VVVX survey

Release Date: Sept. 26, 2024

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