Giant space lobster? Telescope spots spectacular nebula.

A new image of the nebula NGC 6357 in the Scorpius constellation shows a star nursery that looks distinctly like a cosmic lobster.  

|
ESO/VVV Survey/D. Minniti. Acknowledgement: Ignacio Toledo
A star-forming region of the Milky Way looks oddly like a 'cosmic lobster' in this photo.

A new photo by a telescope in Chile has captured an amazing view of wispy interstellar clouds creating what appears to be a "cosmic lobster" in a distant star nursery, scientists say.

The new image, released today (Feb. 20) by the European Southern Observatory, reveals the nebula NGC 6357 about 8,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius (the Scorpion). Massive, hot, blue stars dot the wisps of gas and dust in the stellar nursery, which is

The space cloud formation is also known as the "Lobster nebula" because of its appearance in visible-light images, ESO officials explained in a statement. ESO astronauts also unveiled a new video of the Lobster nebula to accompany the new image.

"One of the bright young stars in NGC 6357, known as Pismis 24-1, was thought to be the most massive star known — until it was found to actually be made up of at least three huge bright stars, each with a mass of under 100 times that of our sun," ESO officials said in the image description.  "Even so, these stars are still heavyweights — some of the most massive in our Milky Way. Pismis 24-1 is the brightest object in the Pismis 24 star cluster, a bunch of stars that are all thought to have formed at the same time within NGC 6357."

This picture was taken using the infrared spectrum of light. While other photos of NGC 6357 have been taken in the visible spectrum, this time scientists used infrared imaging to cut through dust and debris in the foreground and get a more clear understanding of the shrouded nebula.

ESO's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy at the Paranal Observatory in Chile took the photo as part of a huge sky survey named the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea that will image the "central parts of the galaxy."

"VISTA is the largest and most powerful survey telescope ever built, and is dedicated to surveying the sky in infrared light," ESO officials said in a statement. "The VVV survey is scanning the central bulge and some of the plane of our galaxy to create a huge dataset that will help astronomers to discover more about the origin, early life, and structure of the Milky Way."

Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter @mirikramer or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Giant space lobster? Telescope spots spectacular nebula.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0220/Giant-space-lobster-Telescope-spots-spectacular-nebula.
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe