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The rich patchwork of gas clouds in this new image make up part of a huge stellar nursery nicknamed the Prawn Nebula (also known as Gum 56 and IC 4628). Taken using the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, this may well be one of the best pictures ever taken of this object. It shows clumps of hot new-born stars nestled in among the clouds that make up the nebula.
Zoom into The Cartwheel Galaxy | James Webb Space Telescope
This video takes the viewer on a journey that zooms through space to reveal the Cartwheel Galaxy.
This image of the Cartwheel and its companion galaxies is a composite from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), which reveals details that are difficult to see in the individual images alone.
Webb’s observations capture Cartwheel in a very transitory stage. The form that the Cartwheel Galaxy will eventually take, given these two competing forces, is still a mystery. However, this snapshot provides perspective on what happened to the galaxy in the past and what it will do in the future.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Webb, NASA, Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, E. Slawik, N. Risinger, N. Bartmann
This pan video takes a closer look at some of the strange and spectacular features in the glowing jumble of gas clouds making up a huge stellar nursery nicknamed the Prawn Nebula. Taken using the VLT Survey Telescope at European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, this may well be the sharpest picture ever taken of this object.
This video sequence starts with a view of the rich central parts of the Milky Way and then closes in on a spectacular region of star formation known as the Prawn Nebula (also known as Gum 56 and IC 4628) in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). The final close up view is a very sharp image taken using the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.
Distance:6,000 light years
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/Nick Risinger
The glowing jumble of gas clouds visible in new image make up a huge stellar nursery nicknamed the Prawn Nebula. Taken using the VLT Survey Telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, this may well be the sharpest picture ever taken of this object. It shows clumps of hot new-born stars nestled in among the clouds that make up the nebula.
This image also contains information from images of this object taken by Martin Pugh.
The North America Nebula | Samuel Oschin Observatory
This image is a composite from black and white images taken with the Palomar Observatory's 48-inch (1.2 meter) Samuel Oschin Telescope as a part of the second National Geographic Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II). The images were recorded on two glass photographic plates—one sensitive to red light and the other to blue and later they were digitized. In order to produce the color image seen here a total of 62 different frames were processed with the European Space Agency/European Southern Observatory/NASA FITS Liberator by Italian amateur astronomer Davide De Martin—31 frames for each color band, coming from 4 different plates taken from 1990 to 1993. The original file is 14,264 x 15,429 pixels with a resolution of about 1 arc-second per pixel. The image covers an area of sky larger than 4› x 4.3› (for comparison, the Full Moon is about 0.5› in diameter).
Credit: Davide De Martin (European Space Agency /Hubble), the ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator & Digitized Sky Survey 2
This wide-field view captures the evocative and colorful star formation region of the Seagull Nebula, IC 2177, on the borders of the constellations of Monoceros (The Unicorn) and Canis Major (The Great Dog). This view was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/Digitized Sky Survey 2
Panning across the Head of The Seagull Nebula | ESO
This video gives a close-up view of an image from the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory showing part of a stellar nursery nicknamed the Seagull Nebula. This cloud of gas, known as Sh 2-292, RCW 2 and Gum 1, seems to form the head of the seagull and glows brightly due to the energetic radiation from a very hot young star lurking at its heart. The detailed view was produced by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope.
This video sequence starts with a broad view of the Milky Way before closing in on the familiar bright star Sirius and the nearby constellation of Orion (The Hunter). We see a faint red object resembling a bird in flight—the Seagull Nebula (IC 2177) and zoom in on what turns out to be a dramatic star formation region. The final view of the head part of the seagull is a detailed image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/Digitized Sky Survey 2/Nick Risinger
This image shows the intricate structure of part of the Seagull Nebula, known more formally as IC 2177. These wisps of gas and dust are known as Sharpless 2-296 (officially Sh 2-296) and form part of the “wings” of the celestial bird. This region of the sky is a fascinating muddle of intriguing astronomical objects—a mix of dark and glowing red clouds, weaving amongst bright stars. This new view was captured by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.
This celestial cloudscape from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope captures the colorful region surrounding the Herbig-Haro object HH 505. Herbig-Haro objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars, and are formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shockwaves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. In the case of HH 505, these outflows originate from the star IX Ori, which lies on the outskirts of the Orion Nebula around 1,000 light-years from Earth. The outflows themselves are visible as gracefully curving structures at the top and bottom of this image, and are distorted into sinuous curves by their interaction with the large-scale flow of gas and dust from the core of the Orion Nebula.
This observation was captured with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) by astronomers studying the properties of outflows and protoplanetary discs. The Orion Nebula is awash in intense ultraviolet radiation from bright young stars. The shockwaves formed by the outflows are brightly visible to Hubble, but the slower-moving currents of stellar material are also highlighted by this radiation. This allows astronomers to directly observe jets and outflows and learn more about their structures.
The Orion Nebula is a dynamic region of dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming, and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. As a result, it is one of the most scrutinized areas of the night sky and has often been a target for Hubble. This observation was also part of a spellbinding Hubble mosaic of the Orion Nebula, which combined 520 ACS images in five different colors to create the sharpest view ever taken of the region.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, J. Bally
The Trifid Nebula: Stellar Sibling Rivalry | Hubble
Massive newborn stars are being created in this dramatic torn apart image of the Trifid Nebula. The Trifid Nebula is home to many thousands of newly created stars. The source of the jet is a young very hot star buried in the cloud.
This NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope image of the Trifid Nebula reveals a stellar nursery being torn apart by radiation from a nearby, massive star.
The picture also provides a peek at embryonic stars forming within an ill-fated cloud of dust and gas, which is destined to be eaten away by the glare from the massive neighbor.
This stellar activity is a beautiful example of how the life cycles of stars like our Sun is intimately connected with their more powerful siblings.
Distance: 9,000 light years
Credit: NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) and Jeff Hester (Arizona State University)
Three huge intersecting dark lanes of interstellar dust make the Trifid Nebula one of the most recognizable and striking star birth regions in the night sky. The dust, silhouetted against glowing gas and illuminated by starlight, cradles the bright stars at the heart of the Trifid Nebula. This nebula, also known as Messier 20 and NGC 6514, lies within our own Milky Way Galaxy about 9,000 light-years (2,700 parsecs) from Earth, in the constellation Sagittarius.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)
The Trifid Nebula, cataloged by astronomers as Messier 20 or NGC 6514, is a well-known region of star formation lying within our own Milky Way Galaxy. It is called the Trifid because the nebula is overlain by three bands of obscuring interstellar dust, giving it a trisected appearance as seen in small telescopes. The Trifid lies about 9,000 light-years (2,700 parsecs) from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)
This video sequence compares a view of the Trifid Nebula in infrared light, from the VVV VISTA survey with a more familiar visible-light view from a small telescope. The glowing clouds of gas and dust are much less prominent in the infrared view, but many more stars behind the nebula become apparent, including two Cepheid variable stars.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO) / VVV consortium / D. Minniti/Gábor Tóth
This image provides a comparison between an image of the Trifid Nebula acquired in the infrared during the VVV survey carried out by the European Southern Observatory's VISTA telescope (above) and the more familiar image acquired in the visible range by a small telescope (below). In the infrared, the luminous clouds of gas and dust appear much less prominent, and many stars beyond the nebula appear, including the two newly discovered Cepheid variable stars.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/VVV consortium/D. Minniti/ Gabor Toth