Every now and then astronomers come up with a photograph that deserves wider circulation than it gets in the science journals.
Articles with Nebulas
Rosette Nebula • Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope / 2003
Detail of a Hubble Space Telescope mosaic image of the Crab Nebula • NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)
Appreciating our bizarre universe
On the evening of January 4 [2003], Saturn passed in front of the Crab Nebula.
Detail of the Eagle Nebula as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope • NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Poetry in interstellar motion
Each of the three books of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” ends with the same words: “the stars.”
The original 1995 image of the Eagle nebula • NASA, Jeff Hester, and Paul Scowen (Arizona State University)
More than gas, less than Jesus
A few weeks ago [in 1995], the Space Telescope Science Institute released two spectacular pictures of a star-forming region in the constellation Serpens. It was an easy matter to download them quickly over the Internet into my computer.
Orion Nebula • ESA/Hubble
Gazing into creation’s light
On a night that is perfectly dark and clear, the naked eye can just discern the Great Orion Nebula as a patch of fuzzy white light in the sword of Orion. It might easily be mistaken for a star, but the light we see is the light of many stars, newly born, embedded in a cloud of glowing gas.
The Great Nebula in Orion • Photo by Bryan Goff (CC BY SA 4.0)
Exploring the birthplace of the stars
Orion the Hunter, the Giant, the pursuer of the Pleiades, is a familiar figure in the night sky. Even the neophyte stargazer will recognize the three bright stars of Orion’s belt, and the triad of stars that are the sword dangling at his hip. If the night is clear you might notice that the middle star of the sword lacks the sharp definition of the other stars. Binoculars will show that the “star” is not a star at all, but a blur of greenish light. Observatory photographs record a swirling drapery of luminous gas.