As these clumps get bigger and bigger, their gravity gets stronger and stronger. Eventually, the clump of dust and gas gets so big that it collapses from its own gravity. The collapse causes the material at the center of the cloud to heat up-and this hot core is the beginning of a star.
Nebulae exist in the space between the stars—also known as interstellar space. The closest known nebula to Earth is called the Helix Nebula. It is the remnant of a dying star—possibly one like the Sun. An expanding shell of gas from a dying star that was similar to the Sun, the Dumbbell Nebula may offer a glimpse into the future of our own star.
Although the Sun has five billion years of nuclear fuel left, the star that created the Dumbbell exhausted its fuel over 50, years ago. In its death throes, the star blew off its outer layers to form the beautiful ghostly nebula we see today. The nebula got its popular name because of a double lobe appearance. What shape do you see in your OWN image? The Trifid Nebula is a stellar nursery, where young hot stars are illuminating the cocoon of gas surrounding them.
The light reaching us comes directly from the hot gas, but also from starlight reflected from the dust of the cocoon. It was called the Trifid because in early observations it appeared to be broken into three bright regions by the dust lanes that cross the nebula. How many dust lanes can you see in your OWN image? Resembling a pool of light in the sky, the Lagoon Nebula is a giant cloud of hot hydrogen gas glowing from the intense light of newborn stars.
The Lagoon Nebula, like other star-forming regions, can give us an insight into the environment that gave birth to our own Sun 5 billion years ago. What color does the Lagoon look in your OWN color image? The Eagle Nebula is an immense star-forming region, where the intense radiation and winds from newborn stars are sweeping away the dust and gas that was left over from their formation. Because of these forces, the majestic dusty pillars that give the Eagle its name will evaporate over the next few million years.
Can you match the two? The Crab Nebula is the twisted remains of a giant star that was seen to explode in the year As the outer parts of the stars exploded, the massive core of the star squeezed down to form a city-sized ball of neutrons called a pulsar. Spinning on its axis 30 times a second, the intense magnetic fields of the Crab pulsar power the expansion of the nebula.
The first confirmed discovery of a black hole, Cygnus X-1 is a binary system of a normal star and a massive but invisible companion. The black hole reveals its presence in two ways: its gravitational tug on the visible star, and a glow of X-rays as gas from the star is pulled into the black hole.
Your OWN image will only reveal the visible companion star of the black hole. Can you tell which star it is? The brightest stars in the open cluster M46 are times more luminous than our Sun. In your OWN image of M46, can you spot the small disc of a planetary nebula near the cluster? M46 is a cluster of more than young stars. So what is a planetary nebula, which is the remnant of an old dead star, doing there? A ball of a million stars tightly bound by their mutual gravity, M15 is one of globular clusters that orbit the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
Globular clusters contain some of the oldest stars known in the universe, meaning that M15 has been around for most of the history of the universe! In your OWN image of M15, how many individual stars can you count? One of the largest and nearest "open clusters" in the Milky Way, the Beehive is a swarm of young stars that were born about million years ago.
Also called Praesepe, which is Latin for manger, the Beehive had been seen in the sky and recorded since ancient times, but before Galileo's observations, was always described as a little cloud or mist. Through Galileo's telescope the true nature of Praesepe was revealed. Galileo counted 36 stars in the Beehive cluster. How many can your count in your OWN image?
Some are places where stars have died, others where stars are forming. The Orion Nebula is the latter. At only 1, light-years away, the Orion Nebula is the closest and one of the brightest nebulae visible from Earth.
This means it can be seen with the naked eye up to mid-March when viewed under dark skies. RGB combined in AstroArt at Adjusted curves and levels, and reduced noise of RGB. Final adjustment and tweak in Photoshop. Additional Comments: Some of the luminosity for the image was taken in September , but was not processed because appropriate dark frames were not available at the time. Data was taken on three separate nights, and the seeing varied greatly between nights.
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