Photo of the Day

harsi · Post by **harsi** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 5:29 pm

Â» NASA: Giant Twisters in the Lagoon Nebula

This Hubble Telescope snapshot unveils a pair of one-half, light-year-long interstellar "twisters" -- eerie funnels and twisted-rope structures
(upper left) -- in the heart of the Lagoon Nebula (M8) which lies 5,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.

The hot, central star, O Herschel 36 (upper left), is the primary source of the illuminating light for the brightest region in the nebula,
called the Hourglass. The glare from this hot star is eroding the clouds by heating the hydrogen gas in them, seen as a blue mist at the right
of the image). This activity drives away violent stellar winds that are tearing into the cool clouds.

harsi · Post by **harsi** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:13 pm

Â» NASA: A Perfect Storm of Turbulent Gases - Image of the Day - Gallery

Resembling the fury of a raging sea, this image actually shows a bubbly ocean of glowing hydrogen gas and small amounts of other
elements such as oxygen and sulfur. The photograph, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, captures a small region within
M17, a hotbed of star formation. M17, also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, is located about 5,500 light-years away in the con-
stellation Sagittarius. The image was released to commemorate the thirteenth anniversary of Hubble's launch.

The wave-like patterns of gas have been sculpted and illuminated by a torrent of ultraviolet radiation from young, massive stars, which
lie outside the picture to the upper left. The glow of these patterns accentuates the three-dimensional structure of the gases. The
ultraviolet radiation is carving and heating the surfaces of cold hydrogen gas clouds. The warmed surfaces glow orange and red. The
intense heat and pressure cause some material to stream away from those surfaces, creating the glowing veil of even hotter greenish
gas that masks background structures. The pressure on the tips of the waves may trigger new star formation within them.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA and J.Hester (ASU)