Jan 20, 2010 1:31 PM

Glowing Hydrogen Highlights Cat's Paw Nebula

Glowing hydrogen lights up this new portrait of the Cat’s Paw Nebula captured by the Wide Field Imager at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The space photo combines images taken with standard red, green and blue filters with those taken through a special filter designed to capture the red light of the hot gas. […]

Glowing hydrogen lights up this new portrait of the Cat's Paw Nebula captured by the Wide Field Imager at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.

The space photo combines images taken with standard red, green and blue filters with those taken through a special filter designed to capture the red light of the hot gas. It's a substantially more detailed and beautiful image than had been previously available. (See a previous version below.)

The Nebula, also known as NGC 6334, is huge cloud of gas and dust about 5,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. Fifty light-years across, the Cat's Paw is a very active star-forming region. The whole area could contain tens of thousands of stars, including many newly ignited blue stars.

The La Silla Observatory is operated by the European Southern Observatory. Extra large images are available at the ESO's website.

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