Monday, 6 October 2014

17 Nebula Shapes You Didn't Know Existed

Eagles, butterflies, and rotten eggs, oh my!


Orion Nebula


Orion Nebula


Ever wonder where stars are born? (And we don't mean reality television.) A mere 1,500 light-years from us, the Orion Nebula — pictured using infrared, ultraviolet, and visible-light colors — is the nearest star factory. It has a heart of four monstrously massive stars, collectively called the Trapezium because of the shape they make.


NASA / Via dvidshub.net


Eagle Nebula


Eagle Nebula


This majestic pillar is 9.5 light-years (or about 57 trillion miles) high. Stars spawn in clouds of cold hydrogen, not unlike your own birth.


NASA / Via dvidshub.net



Here's another view. These pillars of hydrogen gas and dust are incubators for new stars and are 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Serpens.


NASA / Via dvidshub.net


Wizard Nebula


Wizard Nebula


This star cluster is in the constellation Cepheus and is about 7,000 light-years from Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy. The technical name of the cluster is NGC 7380, but let's just pretend it's really sorcery.


NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA / Via dvidshub.net




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