Hubble’s greatest images

Posted by: evildrako on: 28/03/2009

• In: Divers
• 2 Comments

The Perfect Storm: Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, these fantastic, undulating shapes lie within the stellar nursery known as M17, the Omega Nebula, some 5,500 light-years away in Sagittarius

It may look like a seahorse, but the dark object is actually a pillar of smoky dust about 20 light-years long. The structure occurs in our neighbouring Large Magellanic Cloud, in a star-forming region near the Tarantula Nebula

The spiral galaxy M104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile. Seen in silhouette against a bright bulge of stars, the cosmic dust lanes give it a hat-like appearance, suggesting the more popular name, The Sombrero Galaxy

The Orion Nebula, M42, is only 1,500 light-years away. It offers one of the best opportunities to study how stars are born partly because it is the nearest large star-forming region, but also because the nebula’s energetic stars have blown away obscuring dust clouds

A huge gas and dust pillar in the Trifid Nebula, punctuated by a smaller pillar pointing up and an unusual jet pointing to the left.

Thanks Kais for the link