Cat's Paw Nebula, imaged by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope using the IRAC instrument. This is a star-forming region inside the Milky Way galaxy. Locat

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Cat's Paw Nebula, imaged by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope using the IRAC instrument. This is a star-forming region inside the Milky Way galaxy. Located in the constellation of Scorpius, the Cat's Paw Nebula is around 5,000 light years from Earth. The bright band running left to right across the image shows the presence of gas and dust that can collapse to form new stars. The black filaments running through the nebula are particularly dense regions of gas and dust. The entire star-forming region is thought to be between 80-90 light years across. The stars that form inside the nebula heat up the pressurised gas surrounding them, such that the gas may expand and form bubbles, which appear red in this image. Asymmetric bubbles may burst, creating U-shaped features.

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Size: 9724px × 3595px
Photo credit: © NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: -, artwork, astronomical, astronomy, astrophysical, astrophysics, birth, bubbles, dense, dust, forming, gas, illustration, infrared, ir, milky, nebula, nursery, scorpius, space, spitzer, star, starbirth, stars, stellar, telescope