ESO VLT Image: Scarlet Nebula Gum 15

This stunning view of the scarlet nebula Gum 15 was captured by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.

The image, released on Nov. 3, shows a deep black lane of dust across the face of Gum 15.

The nebula itself is shaped by stellar winds from its stars and the nearby star cluster ESO 313-13.

Credit: ESO

ESO Image: Lupus 4 - Cosmic Spider Swallows Starlight

A dark, spider-shaped cloud of cosmic gas blocks out light from stars in a new image taken by a telescope in the Southern Hemisphere.

The amazing photo, taken by a telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile, is filled with stars glowing brightly in a variety of colours.

Red, blue, yellow and orange stars frame the gas blob called Lupus 4, which blots out light from other, more distant stars in the center of the image. Fly through the image in a new video of the Lupus 4 space cloud from ESO.

Eventually, Lupus 4, which is located about 400 light-years from Earth, could give birth to its own stars.

A dark cloud of gas called Lupus 4 blocks out more-distant stars. Photo released Sept. 3, 2014.

Credit: ESO

"How many stars might eventually start to shine within Lupus 4? It is hard to say, as mass estimates for Lupus 4 vary," ESO representatives said in a statement today (Sept. 3).

"Two studies agree on a figure of around 250 times the mass of the sun, though another, using a different method, arrives at a figure of around 1,600 solar masses."

"Either way, the cloud contains ample material to give rise to plenty of bright new stars."

"Rather as earthly clouds make way for sunshine, so, too, shall this cosmic dark cloud eventually dissipate and give way to brilliant starlight."

Another gas cloud in the same area, called Lupus 3, already hosts about 40 young stars that formed over the course of the last 3 million years, ESO said.

The spidery cloud is part of a loose star cluster named the Scorpius-Centaurus OB association, which is a young, widely dispersed star grouping, according to ESO.

The stars in the cluster also likely come from the same huge cloud of cosmic material, representatives from the astronomy organization added.

NASA ESA Hubble Image: Netting an Interstellar Butterfly

The "butterfly effect" says the flap of a butterfly's wings may lead to a developing hurricane on the other side of the world but what happens when a butterfly flaps its wings in the depths of space?

This cosmic butterfly is a nebula known as AFGL 4104, or Roberts 22. 

Caused by a star that is nearing the end of its life and has shrugged off its outer layers, the nebula emerges as a cosmic chrysalis to produce this striking sight. 

Studies of the lobes of Roberts 22 have shown an amazingly complex structure, with countless intersecting loops and filaments.

A butterfly's life span is counted in weeks; although on a much longer timescale, this stage of life for Roberts 22 is also transient. 

It is currently a pre-planetary nebula, a short-lived phase that begins once a dying star has pushed much of the material in its outer layers into space, and ends once this stellar remnant becomes hot enough to ionize the surrounding gas clouds and make them glow.

About 400 years ago, the star at the center of Roberts 22 shed its outer shells, which raced outwards to form this butterfly. 

The central star will soon be hot enough to ionize the surrounding gas, and it will evolve into a fully-fledged planetary nebula.

Credit: NASA, ESA

Hubble spots a Star ready to explode

Credit: NASA

Floating at the center of this new Hubble image is a lidless purple eye, staring back at us through space. 

This ethereal object, known officially as [SBW2007] 1 but sometimes nicknamed SBW1, is a nebula with a giant star at its center. 

The star was originally twenty times more massive than our sun, and is now encased in a swirling ring of purple gas, the remains of the distant era when it cast off its outer layers via violent pulsations and winds.

But the star is not just any star; scientists say that it is destined to go supernova. Twenty-six years ago, another star with striking similarities went supernova—SN 1987A. 

Early Hubble images of SN 1987A show eerie similarities to SBW1.

Both stars had identical rings of the same size and age, which were travelling at similar speeds; both were located in similar HII regions; and they had the same brightness. 

In this way SBW1 is a snapshot of SN1987a's appearance before it exploded, and unsurprisingly, astronomers love studying them together.

NGC 1977: 'Running Man' - Spectacular Nebula Photo

Bernard Miller took this photo of NGC 1977, the Running Man Nebula, Nov. 12, 2012

The Running Man Nebula sprints into focus in this beautiful night sky photo.

Astrophotographer Bernard Miller captured the image between Nov. 12, 2012 and Feb. 4, 2013, from Rancho Hidalgo, N.M.

This reflection nebula, also known as NGC 1977, is located in the constellation of Orion about 1,500 light years from Earth.

A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). A reflection nebula doesn't emit any visible light on its own; instead it's illuminated by light from nearby stars.

Miller used a TEC-140 (F7) telescope, an AP900 GTO mount and a SBIG ST-8300M camera to take the photos for this image.

ESA ESO Image: Large Sagittarius Star Cloud and a drop of Black

This image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows the bright star cluster NGC 6520 and its neighbour, the strangely shaped dark cloud Barnard 86. 

This cosmic pair is set against millions of glowing stars from the brightest part of the Milky Way -- a region so dense with stars that barely any dark sky is seen across the picture. 

Credit: ESA, ESO.

This part of the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer) is one of the richest star fields in the whole sky - the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud.

The huge number of stars that light up this region dramatically emphasise the blackness of dark clouds like Barnard 86, which appears at the centre of this new picture from the Wide Field Imager, an instrument mounted on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile.

This object, a small, isolated dark nebula known as a Bok globule, was described as "a drop of ink on the luminous sky" by its discoverer Edward Emerson Barnard, an American astronomer who discovered and photographed numerous comets, dark nebulae, one of Jupiter's moons, and made many other contributions.

An exceptional visual observer and keen astrophotographer, Barnard was the first to use long-exposure photography to explore dark nebulae.

Through a small telescope Barnard 86 looks like a dearth of stars, or a window onto a patch of distant, clearer sky.

However, this object is actually in the foreground of the star field - a cold, dark, dense cloud made up of small dust grains that block starlight and make the region appear opaque.

It is thought to have formed from the remnants of a molecular cloud that collapsed to form the nearby star cluster NGC 6520, seen just to the left of Barnard 86 in this image.

NGC 6520 is an open star cluster that contains many hot stars that glow bright blue-white, a telltale sign of their youth.

Open clusters usually contain a few thousand stars that all formed at the same time, giving them all the same age.

Such clusters usually only live comparatively short lives, on the order of several hundred million years, before drifting apart.

The incredible number of stars in this area of the sky muddles observations of this cluster, making it difficult to learn much about it.

NGC 6520's age is thought to be around 150 million years, and both this star cluster and its dusty neighbour are thought to lie at a distance of around 6000 light-years from our Sun.

The stars that appear to be within Barnard 86 in the image above are in fact in front of it, lying between us and the dark cloud.

Although it is not certain whether this is still happening within Barnard 86, many dark nebulae are known to have new stars forming in their centres - as seen in the famous Horsehead Nebula (eso0202), the striking object Lupus 3 (eso1303) and to a lesser extent in another of Barnard's discoveries, the Pipe Nebula (eso1233).

However, the light from the youngest stars is blocked by the surrounding dusty regions, and they can only be seen in infrared or longer-wavelength light.

ESA /ESO APEX Image: Setting the Dark on Fire

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To better understand star formation, astronomers need telescopes that can observe at longer wavelengths, such as the submillimetre range, in which the dark dust grains shine rather than absorb light.

APEX, on the Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes, is the largest single-dish submillimetre-wavelength telescope operating in the southern hemisphere, and is ideal for astronomers studying the birth of stars in this way.

Located in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter), 1500 light-years away from Earth, the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth, and contains a treasury of bright nebulae, dark clouds and young stars.

The new image shows just part of this vast complex in visible light, with the APEX observations overlaid in brilliant orange tones that seem to set the dark clouds on fire.

Often, the glowing knots from APEX correspond to darker patches in visible light — the tell-tale sign of a dense cloud of dust that absorbs visible light, but glows at submillimetre wavelengths, and possibly a site of star formation.

The bright patch below of the centre of the image is the nebula NGC 1999. This region — when seen in visible light — is what astronomers call a reflection nebula, where the pale blue glow of background starlight is reflected from clouds of dust.

The nebula is mainly illuminated by the energetic radiation from the young star V380 Orionis [2] lurking at its heart.

In the centre of the nebula is a dark patch, which can be seen even more clearly in this well-known image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Normally, a dark patch such as this would indicate a dense cloud of cosmic dust, obscuring the stars and nebula behind it.

However, in this image we can see that the patch remains strikingly dark, even when the APEX observations are included.

Thanks to these APEX observations, combined with infrared observations from other telescopes, astronomers believe that the patch is in fact a hole or cavity in the nebula, excavated by material flowing out of the star V380 Orionis.

The region surrounding the reflection nebula Messier 78

This image of the region surrounding the reflection nebula Messier 78, just to the north of Orion’s belt, shows clouds of cosmic dust threaded through the nebula like a string of pearls.

The submillimeter-wavelength observations, made with the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope and shown here in orange, use the heat glow of interstellar dust grains to show astronomers where new stars are being formed.

They are overlaid on a view of the region in visible light.

Image: ESO/APEX (MPIfR/ESO/OSO)/T. Stanke et al./Igor Chekalin/Digitized Sky Survey 2

Stargazer Captures Striking Nebula View

Bill Snyder captured Sh2-112 Sharpless on July 29, 2012 from his home observatory in Connellsville, Pa.

He used a TMB130mm telescope equipped with an Apogee U8300 camera, as well as an Atlas EQG mount and several filters to view SH2-112.

The total exposure time to capture this image was more than 18 hours.

CREDIT: Bill Snyder, Astrophotography

ESA ESO VLT Image: Thor's Helmet Nebula

This ESO VLT image of the Thor’s Helmet Nebula was taken on the occasion of ESO’s 50th Anniversary, 5 October 2012, with the help of Brigitte Bailleul.

The observations were broadcast live over the internet from the Paranal Observatory in Chile.

This object, also known as NGC 2359, lies in the constellation of Canis Major (The Great Dog).

The helmet-shaped nebula is around 15,000 light-years away from Earth and is over 30 light-years across.

The helmet is a cosmic bubble, blown as the wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's centre sweeps through the surrounding molecular cloud.

Image: ESO/B. Bailleul

NASA WISE: Soul Nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia

This WISE mosaic is of the Soul Nebula (a.k.a. the Embryo Nebula, IC 1848, or W5).

It is an open cluster of stars surrounded by a cloud of dust and gas over 150 light-years across and located about 6,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia, near the Heart Nebula (partially seen in the WISE image of Maffei 1 & 2).

The cluster of stars, IC 1848, formed about a million years ago from the material of the nebula. Winds and ultraviolet light from these young stars are excavating a cavity in the cloud.

Parts of the cloud that are more dense than their surroundings are being eroded more slowly and form giant towers, or pillars of dust and gas, which all point toward the central star cluster. It’s reminiscent of the landscape of Badlands National Park in South Dakota.

Material at the interior edges of the cavity is also being compressed by the winds and radiation from the star cluster. This triggers new star formation in those areas. The pillars inside the Soul Nebula are each about 10 light-years tall and have stars forming at their tips.

All four infrared detectors aboard WISE were used to make this image. Color is representational: blue and cyan represent infrared light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is primarily light from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is primarily emission from warm dust.

A note about astronomical names: Many objects in the sky have common names that astronomers will use to reference them. However, many, many more objects in the sky do not have common names and only their entry name in an astronomical catalogue is used.

One of the most prominent astronomical catalogues is the New General Catalogue (NGC) of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars. It was published in the 1880s. So an object with a name like NGC 7380 means that it is the 7,380th entry in the NGC.

Two additional catalogues were published as addendums to the NGC called the Index Catalogues (IC) between 1896 and 1905. The designation of IC 1848 for the Soul Nebula means that it is the 1,848th entry in the Index Catalogues of the NGC.

There are many catalogues of astronomical objects, each with their own purpose, and objects can be listed in more than one catalogue. For example, Dutch Astronomer Gart Westerhout made a catalogue of radio sources in the sky. Entry number five in the catalogue, W5, corresponds to IC 1848, i.e. the Soul Nebula (sometimes called the Embryo Nebula).

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team

NASA WISE: Thor's Helmet in Constellation Canis Major

This heroic image from WISE is of a special cloud of dust and gas in the constellation Canis Major catalogued as NGC 2359.

The nebula is more commonly known as Thor's Helmet due to its remarkable resemblance to depictions of the headwear donned by the famed Norse god of thunder and lightning.

Powering Thor’s Helmet is HD 56925, a highly luminous "Wolf-Rayet" star (seen at the centre of the helmet).

These kinds of stars are massive; from 10 to 80 times the mass of our Sun. Such stars are often associated with bright nebulae, many of which appear to be spherical bubbles with the Wolf-Rayet star at the centre.

It is thought that the progenitors of these stars are either red supergiants or luminous blue variable stars, both of which slowly shed matter as they age. Once the star enters its Wolf-Rayet phase its strong, fast stellar wind sweeps up the surrounding debris left by the original star and even gathers up interstellar matter from its environment.

It literally blows a bubble in space. These hot stars become 200,000 times more luminous than the Sun. They flood the nebula with ultraviolet light that ionizes much of the gaseous material leading to the bright emission in visible light. Interactions with a nearby large molecular cloud are thought to have contributed to the more complex shape and curved bow-shock structure of Thor's Helmet.

NGC 2359 was the first Wolf-Rayet nebula to be discovered. Between 1917 and 1919, Francis Pease studied the nebula at the Mt. Wilson observatory in southern California. He described the bright regions of the nebula as matching the descriptions of early observers such as Sir John Herschel (son of the discoverer of infrared light, William Herschel), who saw a bust rather than a helmet.

The object was later found to show nitrogen emission by Edwin Hubble and listed in his 1922 paper, A general study of diffuse galactic nebulae. The object has also been of interest to members of the WISE science team during their careers having been studied by Martin Cohen and the WISE Principal Investigator Ned Wright, who co-authored an article in the March 1980 issue of Sky & Telescope, A bubble in space - The shell of NGC 2359.

Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across and its distance from Earth is estimated to be about 15,000 light-years. This image covers an area of sky about 2.5 times the size of the full Moon. All four infrared detectors aboard WISE were used to make this image. Color is representational: blue and cyan represent infrared light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is dominated by light from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is mostly light from warm dust.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team

Hubble Bubble: Spectacular Space Bubble Photograph

Spectacular Space Bubble Photographed by Hubble

A spectacular new photo from the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a stunning space bubble filled with baby stars.

The new space bubble image highlights an area called N11 – a complex network of gas clouds and star clusters within our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud.

This energetic star-forming region is the second largest known to date, and one of the most active in our galactic neighbour.

Bubbles in space

The Large Magellanic Cloud contains many bright nebula bubbles, though N11 is one of the most magnificent, Hubble officials said.

Astronomers took the new N11 photo using Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, which was repaired in May 2009 during NASA's last service call to the iconic space telescope. The image is actually a mosaic of five different views observed by Hubble, researchers said.

Officially known as LHA 120-N 11, N11 is one of many nebulas catalogued in 1956 by American astronomer Karl Henize, who later became a NASA astronaut. The object's characteristic shape earned it a nickname as the "Bean Nebula."

N11's billowing pink clouds of glowing gas and the dramatic and colorful features visible in the burgeoning nebula are telltale signs of star-formation. The nebula is a well-studied patch of space that is spread across more than 1,000 light-years and has produced some of the most massive stars currently known.

That star-formation bonanza actually holds the key to the N11 nebula's gossamer bubble look.

Three successive generations of stars, each forming further away from N11's center than the last, have created shells of gas and dust that were later blown away from their parent stars. This created the dazzling ring shapes that are so prominent in the Hubble image.

The Eerie Glow from M78 nebula in Orion Constellation

An eerie blue glow and ominous columns of dark dust highlight M78 and other bright reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion.

The dark filamentary dust not only absorbs light, but also reflects the light of several bright blue stars that formed recently in the nebula. Of the two reflection nebulas pictured above, the more famous nebula is M78, in the image centre, while NGC 2071 can be seen to its lower left.

The same type of scattering that colors the daytime sky further enhances the blue color. M78 is about five light-years across and visible through a small telescope.

M78 appears above only as it was 1600 years ago, however, because that is how long it takes light to go from there to here. M78 belongs to the larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex that contains the Great Nebula in Orion and the Horsehead Nebula.

Discover the Cosmos with NASA APOD website

NASA Charles Messier's catalogue spiral nebula NGC 5194

This NASA image obtained shows the 51st entry in Charles Messier's catalogue, perhaps the original spiral nebula, also catalogued as NGC 5194.

Over 60,000 light-years across, M51's spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy, NGC 5195.

Image data from the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys was reprocessed, which sharpened details and enhanced colour and contrast in otherwise faint areas, bringing out dust lanes and extended streams that cross the small companion, along with features in the surroundings and core of M51 itself

Picture: AFP/GETTY / HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM

NASA: Recent Picture Show from Re-furbished Hubble (HST)