Starry Critters

Plants/Flowers

A Blooming Rose

by CritterKeeper on Aug.17, 2010, under Plants/Flowers

Credit: NASA, ESA and Moham­mad Heydari-Malayeri (Obser­va­toire de Paris, France)

Fierce radi­a­tion from N11A’s cen­tral star is shap­ing a del­i­cate rose in space in this image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope.

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Flower in Circinus

by CritterKeeper on Apr.12, 2010, under Plants/Flowers

Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hub­ble Her­itage Team (STScI/AURA)

A red flower blos­soms in the south­ern con­stel­la­tion of Circi­nus in this image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope. NGC 5315 is a plan­e­tary neb­ula.

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Cosmic Buds

by CritterKeeper on Mar.26, 2010, under Plants/Flowers

NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team

Flower-shaped neb­ula abound in the cos­mos. This churn­ing bud blos­soms with new stars in a new infrared image from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Sur­vey Explorer. The stars, called the Berke­ley 5 clus­ter, show as blue dots to the right of the image. They shine in the cloud from which they formed only about a mil­lion years ago.

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Valentine Rose

by CritterKeeper on Feb.12, 2010, under Plants/Flowers

Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA

Bright, young stars form a rosebud-shaped neb­ula in this image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Tele­scope known as NGC 7129. In this Valentine’s Day image, thou­sands of stars are being formed in this dense cloud of gas and dust. Most stars, includ­ing our Sun, are thought to have formed in such clouds. Spitzer’s infrared cam­era allows us to peer inside this cloud.

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Flower of Orion

by CritterKeeper on Feb.11, 2010, under Plants/Flowers

Credit: Euro­pean South­ern Obser­va­tory (ESO)

Explore the folds and petals of the Orion Neb­ula in this dra­matic new image from ESO’s VISTA sur­vey tele­scope. VISTA’s infrared vision allows to deeply into this well-known neb­ula show­ing young active stars and regions of warm gas. As we peer through a tele­scope at the Orion Neb­ula, we see only a small part of the light stream­ing to us. The infrared sen­sors on NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope and VISTA show a much larger com­plex of gas and dust, all mate­r­ial for new stars to form.

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Intense Flames

by CritterKeeper on Jan.15, 2010, under Plants/Flowers

Credit: ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA.

What looks like a flame, or a cos­mic jel­ly­fish, is seen shoot­ing out of the rich star–form­ing region of the Flame Neb­ula. Also known as NGC 2024, the Flame Neb­ula shows a bright group of stars light­ing up the region with the core com­pletely hid­den behind a pil­lar of dust. Intense ultra­vi­o­let light and strong winds come from bright, new stars deep in the heart of the Flame Neb­ula. The ultra­vi­o­let light excites atoms inside the neb­ula caus­ing it to glow. Usu­ally we see great images like this from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope. This image comes to us from the giant, 4.1-meter VISTA tele­scope, the world’s largest sur­vey tele­scope.

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Spacey Tree

by CritterKeeper on Dec.14, 2009, under Plants/Flowers

Credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/P.S. Teix­eira (Cen­ter for Astrophysics)

Whether you see a Christ­mas tree or snowflake, this neb­ula rep­re­sents win­ter. Trace the dim tri­an­gu­lar pat­tern of the tree in the wisps of green and yel­low. Or fol­low the pat­tern of a snowflake in the cen­ter group of stars in this Spitzer Space Tele­scope image of the Christ­mas Tree Neb­ula.

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Wonders in Orion

by CritterKeeper on Oct.09, 2009, under Plants/Flowers

Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Rob­berto (Space Tele­scope Sci­ence Institute/ESA) and the Hub­ble Space Tele­scope Orion Trea­sury Project Team

The Great Neb­ula in Orion, shown in this image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope, is a place of won­der. The neb­ula, also known as M42, shows flow­ers in gas, giant pil­lars of dust and mas­sive stars. Strong winds from mas­sive stars found in the cen­ter of the neb­ula carved out a great cav­ity in the neb­ula.

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