Known as the Orion Nebula, the glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud. Many of the filamentary structures visible in the above image are actually shock waves - fronts where fast moving material encounters slow moving gas. The Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located about 1500 light years away in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.
This infrared view from the Herschel Space Observatory explores the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest large spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way.
AE Aurigae is called the flaming star. The surrounding nebula IC 405 is named the Flaming Star Nebula.
At bottom, upper right, and lower left it covers the Lagoon Nebula (M8), the Trifid Nebula (M20), and NGC 6559, in the crowded, dusty starfields of the central Milky Way.
From afar, the whole thing looks like an Eagle. A closer look at the Eagle Nebula, however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell of dust.
At the heart of the Orion Nebula, are four hot, massive stars known as the Trapezium. Gathered within a region about 1.5 light-years in radius, they dominate the core of the dense Orion Nebula Star Cluster.
These unusual blobs found in the Carina nebula, some of which are seen floating on the upper right, might best be described as evaporating. Ironically the blobs, otherwise known as dark molecular clouds, frequently create in their midst the very stars that later destroy them.
In the depths of the dark clouds of dust and molecular gas known as the Omega Nebula, stars continue to form. The above image from the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys shows exquisite detail in the famous star-forming region. The dark dust filaments that lace the center of Omega Nebula were created in the atmospheres of cool giant stars and in the debris fromsupernova explosions.
30 Doradus, the red and pink gas indicates a massive emission nebula, although supernova remnants and dark nebula also exist there. The bright knot of stars left of center is called R136and contains many of the most massive, hottest, and brightest stars known.
Nebula IC 1396 mixes glowing cosmic gas and dark dust clouds in constellation of Cepheus.
NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is a cosmic bubble about 25 light-years across, blown by winds from its central, bright, massive star. NASA photo of the day 2012 August 16.
HST Orion nebula image composited with a Spitzer image.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured an unprecedented look at the Orion Nebula. This turbulent star formation region is one of astronomy’s most
dramatic and photogenic celestial objects.
This is a Spitzer image of the Orion nebula in the infrared overlaid with XMM-Newton X-ray data in blue.
