M17, NGC 6618, Swan Nebula
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a new, infrared view of the choppy star-making cloud called M17, or the Swan nebula. The cloud, located about 6,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius, is dominated by a central group of massive stars that give off intense flows of expanding gas, which rush like rivers against dense piles of material, carving out the deep pocket at center of the picture. Winds from the region's other massive stars push back against these oncoming rivers, creating bow shocks. They are composed of compressed gas in addition to dust that glows at infrared wavelengths Spitzer can see. The smiley-shaped bow shocks curve away from the stellar winds of the central massive stars. This picture was taken with Spitzer's infrared array camera. It is a four-color composite, in which light with a wavelength of microns is blue; light is green; light is orange; and 8-micron light is red. Dust is red, hot gas is green and white is where gas and dust intermingle.
Size: 3600px × 2930px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: -color, 17, 6618, array, astronomical, astronomy, body, bow, camera, celestial, checkmark, cloud, composite, constellation, deep, heavenly, horseshoe, image, infrared, interstellar, irac, lobster, m17, messier, mission, nebula, nebulae, ngc, object, omega, region, sagittarius, science, shocks, sky, space, spitzer, sst, star-forming, swan, telescope
