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The Lagoon Nebula: "A 370-million-pixel Starscape" | ESO
The third image of ESO’s GigaGalaxy Zoom project is an amazing vista of the Lagoon Nebula taken with the 67-million-pixel Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The image covers more than one and a half square degree—an area eight times larger than that of the Full Moon—with a total of about 370 million pixels. It is based on images acquired using three different broadband filters (B, V, R) and one narrow-band filter (H-alpha).
Webb Sneak Preview: The Lagoon Nebula (Infrared View) | Hubble
This star-filled image, taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in near-infrared wavelengths of light, reveals a very different view of the Lagoon Nebula compared to its visible-light portrait. Making infrared observations of the cosmos allows astronomers to penetrate vast clouds of gas and dust to uncover hidden gems. Hubble’s view offers a sneak peek at the dramatic vistas NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will provide.
The most obvious difference between Hubble’s infrared and visible photos of this region is the abundance of stars that fill the infrared field of view. Most of them are more distant, background stars located behind the nebula itself. However, some of these pinpricks of light are young stars within the Lagoon Nebula. The brilliant star near the center of the frame, known as Herschel 36, is about 200,000 times brighter than our Sun.
This hefty star is 32 times more massive and eight times hotter than our Sun. Its powerful ultraviolet radiation and fierce stellar winds are carving away the surrounding nebula, removing the raw materials that smaller stars need to form. Dark smudges known as Bok globules mark the thickest parts of the nebula, where dust protects still-forming stars and their planets. While Hubble cannot penetrate these dusty clumps, Webb will be able to see through them.
Webb will probe young stars still in the process of forming. It also will examine the disks of dust and gas surrounding those stars, known as protoplanetary disks, in order to determine how far the planet formation process has proceeded. Webb will determine whether the inner regions of those disks have been cleared out, the dust either swept up by protoplanets or swept away by stellar winds.
Webb could take a stellar census of the Lagoon Nebula to determine not only how many massive stars it contains, but also how many Sun-like stars and how many failed stars known as brown dwarfs. This would enable astronomers to get the big picture of the stellar population across the entire range of masses, particularly at the low end.
The image shows a region of the nebula measuring about 4 light-years across. The observations were taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 between Feb. 12 and Feb. 18, 2018.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency, and Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Gas and dust condense, beginning the process of creating new stars in this image of Messier 8, also known as the Lagoon Nebula. Located four to five thousand light-years away, in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), the nebula is a giant interstellar cloud, one hundred light-years across. It boasts many large, hot stars, whose ultraviolet radiation sculpts the gas and dust into unusual shapes. Two of these giant stars illuminate the brightest part of the nebula, known as the Hourglass Nebula, a spiralling, funnel-like shape near its center. Messier 8 is one of the few star-forming nebulae visible to the unaided eye, and was discovered as long ago as 1747, although the full range of colors was not visible until the advent of more powerful telescopes. The Lagoon Nebula derives its name from the wide lagoon-shaped dark lane located in the middle of the nebula that divides it into two glowing sections.
This image combines observations performed through three different filters (B, V, R) with the 1.5-meter Danish telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/ R. Gendler, U.G. Jørgensen, K. Harpsøe
This Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image reveals a pair of one-half light-year long interstellar 'twisters'—eerie funnels and twisted-rope structures—in the heart of the Lagoon Nebula, also known as Messier 8, which lies 5,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.
This close-up shot of the center of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) clearly shows the delicate structures formed when the powerful radiation of young stars interacts with the hydrogen cloud they formed from. Distance: 5,000 light years
This image was created from exposures taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on Hubble. Light from glowing hydrogen (through the F658N filter) is colored red. Light from ionized nitrogen (through the F660N filter) is colored green and light through a yellow filter (F550M) is colored blue. The exposure times through each filter are 1560 s, 1600 s and 400 s respectively. The blue-white flare at the upper-left of the image is scattered light from a bright star just outside the field of view. The field of view is about 3.3 by 1.7 arcminutes.
European Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti: EVA Prep | International Space Station
Can you sense Samantha's excitement just before her first spacewalk outside the International Space Station? She can be seen here putting on a Russian Orlan spacesuit. Expedition 67 Commander Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos and Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy) of the European Space Agency (ESA) concluded their spacewalk or extravehicular activity (EVA) at 5:55 p.m. EDT, July 21, 2022, after 7 hours and 5 minutes.
Artemyev and Cristoforetti completed all but one of their major objectives, which included the deployment of 10 nanosatellites designed to collect radio electronics data during the spacewalk and installing platforms and workstation adapter hardware near the 37-foot-long manipulator system mounted to Nauka. The spacewalkers also relocated the arm’s external control panel and replaced a protective window on the arm’s camera unit. The last planned activity, to extend a Strela telescoping boom from Zarya to Poisk, will be completed on a future spacewalk.
Additional spacewalks are planned to continue outfitting the European robotic arm and to activate Nauka’s airlock for future spacewalks. The work on the European robotic arm will be used to move spacewalkers and payloads around the Russian segment of the station.
This was the sixth spacewalk in Artemyev’s career, and the first for Cristoforetti. It was the sixth spacewalk at the station in 2022 and the 251st spacewalk for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
Expedition 67 Crew
Commander Oleg Artemyev (Russia)
Roscosmos Flight Engineers: Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov (Russia)
NASA Flight Engineers: Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins (USA)
European Space Agency (ESA) Flight Engineer: Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy)
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
The Lagoon Nebula: Visible & Infrared Light View | Hubble
This short videoclip shows the Lagoon Nebula, which was observed to celebrate Hubble's 28th anniversary in space in 2018, first in the visible light and then in the infrared. Both observations were made by Hubble.
While the observations in visible light allow astronomers to study the gas in full detail, the infrared light cuts through the obscuring patches of dust and gas, revealing the more intricate structures underneath and the young stars hiding within it. Only by combining optical and infrared data can astronomers paint a complete picture of the ongoing processes in the nebula.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency, Science Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
This image of the Lagoon Nebula, captured by the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope to celebrate its 28th year in space back in 2018, shows colorful clouds of gas and dust of this star-formation region in incredible detail.
The image reveals a fantastic landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust. This dust-and-gas landscape is being sculpted by powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds unleashed by a young star. Located at the center of the image, the star, known as Herschel 36, is about 200,000 times brighter than our Sun.
This video begins with a ground-based view of the night sky, before zooming in on the Lagoon Nebula as it can be seen with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula is immense—55 light-years wide and 20 light-years tall—and so Hubble can only image a tiny part of it in stunning detail.
This nebula is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.
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)
NASA's Space to Ground: Double Dragons | Week of July 22, 2022
European Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti of Italy Completes Her First Spacewalk!
NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station. Expedition 67 Commander Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos and Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency (ESA) concluded their spacewalk at 5:55 p.m. EDT, July 21, 2022, after 7 hours and 5 minutes.
Artemyev and Cristoforetti completed all but one of their major objectives, which included the deployment of 10 nanosatellites designed to collect radio electronics data during the spacewalk and installing platforms and workstation adapter hardware near the 37-foot-long manipulator system mounted to Nauka. The spacewalkers also relocated the arm’s external control panel and replaced a protective window on the arm’s camera unit. The last planned activity, to extend a Strela telescoping boom from Zarya to Poisk, will be completed on a future spacewalk.
Additional spacewalks are planned to continue outfitting the European robotic arm and to activate Nauka’s airlock for future spacewalks. The work on the European robotic arm will be used to move spacewalkers and payloads around the Russian segment of the station.
This was the sixth spacewalk in Artemyev’s career, and the first for Cristoforetti. It was the sixth spacewalk at the station in 2022 and the 251st spacewalk for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
Expedition 67 Crew
Commander Oleg Artemyev (Russia)
Roscosmos Flight Engineers: Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov (Russia)
NASA Flight Engineers: Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins (USA)
European Space Agency (ESA) Flight Engineer: Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy)
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
Tour Stunning Hubble Nebulae Images | NASA Goddard
Over the years, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken hundreds of images of different kinds of incredible nebulae in our universe.
A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas in space. There are different types of nebulae, ranging from sites where stars are being born under gravitational pressures to expanding gaseous remnants thrown off by dying stars.
Hubble Senior Project Scientist, Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, takes us on a tour of some of our universe’s most incredible Nebulae.
Ground-based image taken by Akira Fujii, zoom in on the star formation region of the Orion Nebula observed by Martin Kornmesser
Zoom in to the Cat’s Eye Nebula:
NASA, ESA, HEIC, NOT, Digitized Sky Survey 2, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) and Romano Corradi (Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Spain)
Music Credits:
“Magic Mars” by Bernhard Hering [GEMA], Martin Wester [GEMA], Matthias Kruger [GEMA], via Ed.Berlin Production Music / Universal Production Music GmbH [GEMA], and Universal Production Music
FriendsofNASA.org: NASA’s Artemis I mission is targeted to launch no earlier than Aug. 29, 2022.
Artemis I will be the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The first in a series of increasingly complex missions, Artemis I will be an uncrewed flight test that will provide a foundation for human deep space exploration, and demonstrate our commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond.
During this flight, the spacecraft will launch on the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown. It will travel 280,000 miles from Earth, thousands of miles beyond the Moon over the course of about a four to six-week mission. Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before.
Wispy, noctilucent clouds are pictured blanketing the Earth's horizon as the International Space Station orbited 263 miles above the Sea of Okhotsk. Noctilucent clouds, or night shining clouds, are the highest clouds in Earth's atmosphere, composed of tiny water ice crystals, and are only visible when the sun is below the planet's horizon illuminating them.
Expedition 67 Crew
Commander Oleg Artemyev (Russia)
Roscosmos Flight Engineers: Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov (Russia)
NASA Flight Engineers: Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins (USA)
European Space Agency (ESA) Flight Engineer: Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy)
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
The Orion Nebula: Crossfade Between Visible & Infrared Light Images | ESO
This sequence compares an infrared image of the Orion Nebula star-formation region that was obtained from multiple exposures using the HAWK-I infrared camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope with a picture of the same part of the sky imaged in visible light with the WFI camera on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope. The longer wavelength light detected by HAWK-I can penetrate the dusty regions of the nebula and expose many young stars that are normally invisible and also reveal many curious features created by very young stars and the jets that they expel.
Credits: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/H. Drass/Igor Chekalin. Music: Johan B. Monell
Flight Through the Orion Nebula: Visible and Infrared Light | Hubble
This visualization explores the Orion Nebula using both visible and infrared light. The sequence begins with a wide-field view of the sky showing the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, then zooms down to the scale of the Orion Nebula. The visible light observation (from the Hubble Space Telescope) and the infrared light observation (from the Spitzer Space Telescope) are compared first in two-dimensional images, and then in three-dimensional models.
As the camera flies into the star-forming region, the sequence cross-fades back and forth between the visible and infrared views. The glowing gaseous landscape has been illuminated and carved by the high energy radiation and strong stellar winds from the massive hot stars in the central cluster. The infrared observations generally show cooler temperature gas at a deeper layer of the nebula that extends well beyond the visible image. In addition, the infrared showcases many faint stars that shine primarily at longer wavelengths. The higher resolution visible observations show finer details including the wispy bow shocks and tadpole-shaped proplyds. In this manner, this video illustrates the contrasting features uncovered by multi-wavelength astronomy.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Summers, G. Bacon, Z. Levay, J. DePasquale, L. Hustak, L. Frattare, M. Robberto (STScI), R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC), M. Kornmesser (ESA), A. Fujii
Acknowledgement: R. Gendler
Music: “Dvorak – Serenade for Strings Op22 in E Major larghetto”, performed by The Advent Chamber Orchestra, CC BY-SA
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