The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the Shrimp Nebula. It is 6,000 light-years from Earth.
The Shrimp Nebula is a massive stellar nursery located in the constellation Scorpio, about 6,000 light-years from Earth. Although the nebula spans 250 light-years and takes up four times as much space in the night sky as the full moon, it primarily emits light at wavelengths that the human eye cannot perceive. Because of this, it is very difficult to observe it from Earth. However, for the Hubble Space Telescope, this is an easy task.
He took a picture of a small section of the nebula in both visible and infrared light. As a result, both the details of the structure of the nebula and the bright regions of the glowing gas are visible in the photograph.
The Shrimp Nebula, also known as IC 4628, is an emission nebula. This means that its gas is charged or ionized by radiation from nearby stars. In this image, red indicates the presence of ionized iron (Fe II) emission.
Hubble snapped a photograph as part of a survey of massive to medium-sized protostars or newly formed stars. Previously, “Hi-Tech” showed a snapshot from the same survey – a space telescope photographed a star forming in the IC 2631 nebula in infrared light.
