cosmicvastness: Starry night4,000 light years from Earth, the Lagoon Nebula is seen with its swirlin
cosmicvastness: Starry night4,000 light years from Earth, the Lagoon Nebula is seen with its swirling clouds of gas and dust in a pattern reminiscent of Van Gogh. This nebula provides astronomers an excellent opportunity to study the properties of very young stars. Many infant stars give off copious amounts of high-energy light including X-rays, which are seen in the Chandra X-ray data (in pink) to reveal the infant stars budding in the surreal nightscape. The X-ray data have been combined with an optical image of Messier 8 from the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center in Arizona. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona -- source link