I’ve been off the radar for the past few days, moving into a new house in Colorado. The bad news is that I don’t have Internet access yet. The good news? Two words: spectacular skies!!! I know I’ve told everybody go to check out the skies at night before, but this time I mean it! Whether you live in the city or the country — there’s something out there for you to look at. So, until I get back online more regularly later this week, I expect you all to go out and stargaze. Got it? Good!!
(And thanks for coming to visit!)
P.S. If you haven’t checked out my latest 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, called Measuring the Black Hole, go there now. It’s about black holes — everybody’s favorite topic! Also, if you did come over here to my site looking for the black holes info, I’ve enabled that page. Thanks for your patience!
A portion of the Swan Nebula, as seen by ESO. (Click to embiggen and explore.)
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!!
