What can be more beautiful than a cosmic cloud? The answer is simple: a cosmic cloud that’s teeming with stars. That’s what NASA managed to unveil by looking into space using its Hubble telescope: a cluster dubbed as NGC 6530, which is located about 4,350 light-years away.
There are thousands of stars in the new image spotted by Hubble, and they’re located all the way in the constellation Sagittarius. To be more explicit, we’re talking about a stellar nursery placed within the Lagoon Nebula. The stars that you see are born in a huge cloud of interstellar gas and dust.
Since an image is worth more than a thousand words, here you go:
NASA explained the new discovery:
A collection of thousands of stars lie around 4,350 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. Set within the Lagoon Nebula – a stellar nursery with scorching temperatures, stellar winds, and powerful radiation – these stars form in a gigantic cloud of interstellar dust and gas.
The same space agency didn’t hesitate to shed some more light on the image:
“in every direction, cloudy waves and bands of red, orange, blue, green, and yellow crash over each other. The clouds appear almost like a liquid, mixing and blending with their surroundings. Small white, blue, and purple dots of stars appear at random throughout the image.
Sagittarius is one of the 46 constellations that Ptolemy, the 2nd-century astronomer, has listed. It also remains one of the other 87 constellations that are considered modern.
When NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) last year on Christmas, a lot of people thought that the Hubble telescope would finally meet its end. That’s because Webb is considered the successor of Hubble. But it’s great to see that the telescope operated by NASA and that has been in orbit since 1990 not only that remains functional; it is even bringing massive contributions to more space discoveries.
