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Nebulae and Gas Clouds
Oxygen-Rich Supernova  This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the tattered debris of a star that exploded 3, 000 years ago as a supernova. This supernova remnant, called N132D, lies 169, 000 light-years away in the satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. A Glowing Pool of Light  NGC 3132 is a striking example of a planetary nebula. This expanding cloud of gas, surrounding a dying star, is known to amateur astronomers in the southern hemisphere as the 'Eight-Burst' or the 'Southern Ring' Nebula. Colorful Fireworks Finale Caps a Star's Life  Glowing gaseous streamers of red, white, and blue — as well as green and pink — illuminate the heavens like Fourth of July fireworks. The colorful streamers that float across the sky in this photo taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope were created by the universe's biggest firecracker, the titanic supernova explosion of a massive star. The light from the exploding star reached Earth 320 years ago, nearly a century before our United States celebrated its birth with a bang. The dead star's shredded remains are called Cassiopeia A, or "Cas A" for short. Cas A is the youngest known supernova remnant in our Milky Way Galaxy and resides 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia, so the star actually blew up 10,000 years before the light reached Earth in the late 1600s.
The Orion Nebula  This is one of the nearest regions of very recent star formation (300, 000 years ago). The nebula is a giant gas cloud illuminated by the brightest of the young hot stars at the top of the picture. Many of the fainter young stars are surrounded by disks of dust and gas that are slightly more than twice the diameter of the Solar System. Centaurus A   The Egg Nebula  This image of the Egg Nebula, also known as CRL2688 and located roughly 3, 000 light-years from us, was taken in red light with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope.<BR><BR>This image sheds new light on the poorly understood ejection of stellar matter which accompanies the slow death of Sun-like stars. The image is shown in false color.
NOAO Image of Trifid Nebula   Red Rectangle overview  This ground-based image was taken with the European Southern Observatory’s New Technology Telescope at La Silla Observatory. The image is constructed from three exposures through a blue filter, Hydrogen-alpha filter and a red filter. Note that the HST picture only shows the innermost part of the nebula. The Ghostbuster  The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has caught a glimpse of a colorful cosmic ghost, the glowing remains of a dying star called NGC 6369. The glowing apparition is known to amateur astronomers as the 'Little Ghost Nebula,' because it appears as a small, ghostly cloud surrounding the faint, dying central star.
Detail of a Nebula   Close-Up of M27, the Dumbbell Nebula  The Dumbbell, a nearby planetary nebula residing more than 1,200 light-years away, is the result of an old star that has shed its outer layers in a glowing display of color. The nebula, also known as Messier 27 (M27), was the first planetary nebula ever discovered. French astronomer Charles Messier spotted it in 1764. WIYN Emission Line Image of Dumbbell Nebula  Ground-based image of Dumbbell taken with KPNO WIYN 3.5mtelescope in H-alpha, [O III], and [O I] filters. WIYN Dumbbell Nebula Photo Page
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