The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured a scene made famous by its sibling, the James Webb Space Telescope. One in every of the primary images released from Webb showed the Carina Nebula, a very striking structure of dust and gas positioned in an area of the Milky Way called the Carina-Sagittarius arm. Recently, Hubble has imaged Carina as well, snapping a picture of a small section of this famous nebula.
In comparison with Webb’s image of Carina, which was taken within the infrared wavelength, Hubble’s image is more pastel. Although Hubble operates primarily within the visible light wavelength and Webb operates within the infrared, on this case, Hubble used its infrared capabilities to see through the dust of the nebula and see its structure.
This sparkling latest image depicts a small section of the Carina Nebula, certainly one of the NASA Hubble Space Telescope’s most-imaged objects. The Carina Nebula, NGC 3372, is an infinite cloud of gas and mud home to several massive and vibrant stars, including at the very least a dozen which are 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun. NASA, ESA, and A. Kraus (University of Texas at Austin); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
“It’s an emission nebula, meaning that the extraordinary radiation from its stars ionizes the gas and causes it to glow,” Hubble scientists explain. “That gas is widely and thinly unfolded over a big area, earning it the added designation of a diffuse nebula. Carina is a dynamic area of the sky with bursts of star formation occurring alongside star death. As stars form and produce ultraviolet radiation, their stellar winds disperse the gas and mud around them, sometimes forming dark, dusty cloaks and sometimes creating empty patches for the celebs to turn into clearly visible.”
Hubble has visited Carina before, like this image taken in 2007 or one other taken in 2010. Each image focuses on a unique area of the nebula, bringing together different wavelengths from visible light to infrared and ultraviolet, so as to bring out different features of the scene like dust, gas, and stars.
At 300 light-years across, the nebula is vast, with many various areas showing off scientifically interesting regions like those that are busy with star formation.
Editors’ Recommendations
