Cosmic Tour: The Lagoon Nebula

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Deep in the constellation Sagittarius, 4,000 light-years from Earth, lies a vast stellar nursery known as the Lagoon Nebula.

Credits


Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Sonoma State University

  • Still image of the Lagoon Nebula courtesy of NASA, ESA, STScI
  • Zoom-in to the Lagoon Nebula with 3D visualization courtesy of NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon, D. Player, J. DePasquale, F. Summers, and Z. Levay (STScI); A. Fujii, the Digitized Sky Survey, ESO/VPHAS, and R. Crisp
  • Written by Margaret W. Carruthers
  • Designed by Dani Player
  • Music courtesy of Associated Production Music

Transcript


(SPEECH)
[AMBIENT MUSIC]
 
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Cosmic Tour, The Lagoon Nebula.
 
Deep in the constellation Sagittarius, four thousand light-years from Earth, lies a vast stellar nursery, known as the Lagoon Nebula. A photo of the nebula. Scale, 2 light-years, 0.62 parsecs
 
Text, Dark mountains of dust are silhouetted against luminous gas, heated by a bright young star known as Herschel 36.
 
Stellar winds and blistering radiation have carved out the nebula, leaving resistant pillars, ridges, and cocoons of dust, homes to newly forming stars.
 
The star is circled in black. Text, Young Star, Herschel 35. A black dot marks a dark reddish cloud. Text, Dense, Resistant Dust. A black dot marks a blueish fog. Text, Glowing Gas.
 
A distant star is circled in white.
 
A translucent scorpion is overlaid across a constellation. Text, Scorpius. Ground-based image, A. Fujii. A translucent centaur holding a bow is overlaid across a constellation. Text, Sagittarius, Teapot.
 
Stars fly past until the nebula and Herschel 35 are visible again.
 
Text, Digitized Sky Survey. European Southern Observatory. Hubble Space Telescope.
 
Hubble Space Telescope, 3D Model.
 
Herschel 35 slowly moves out of view again.
 
The dark reddish clouds of dense resistant dust and blueish glowing gases move by.
 
A bright star is visible again.