New images taken by NASA’s Webb Space Telescope show the sharpest images yet of a portion of a horse-shaped nebula which was discovered more than a century ago.
A nebula is a cloud of gas and dust in outer space visible in the night sky either as a distinct bright patch or dark silhouette against other luminous matter — and this one has an astonishing likeness to a horse rearing its head.
The so-called Horsehead Nebula — in the constellation Orion — is 1,300 light years or nearly 6 trillion miles away from earth and shows the “mane” of the stunning formation in greater detail illuminated by a nearby hot star.
Webb, the most powerful space observatory ever built, is able to detect infrared light at unprecedented resolutions, revealing objects that cannot be seen using the visible spectrum in optical telescopes.
“As ultraviolet light evaporates the dust cloud, particles are swept away by the outflow of heated gas,” NASA revealed in a statement alongside the images which show the process in pristine detail.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Faith N
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://www.offthepress.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.