The Swan Nebula
I’m a sucker for beautiful nebulae and the Swan is no exception. It’s also called the Omega Nebula and provides astronomers a huge opportunity to study another starbirth region. It lies about 5,500 light-years away from us toward the constellation Sagittarius.
In fact, for the past few years, astronomers have figured out that this nebula is one of the youngest and most massive star-forming regions in our galaxy. Waves of starbirth began there a few million years ago and is continuing to light up the nebula. The brightly shining gas shown in a newly released image from the European Southern Observatory is just a blister erupting from the side of a much larger dark cloud of molecular gas. The dust that is so prominent in this picture comes from the remains of massive hot stars that have ended their brief lives and ejected material back into space, as well as the cosmic detritus from which future suns form.
Spend some time exploring the Swan in this ESO image. It’s gorgeous!!