Cat’s Paw

Credit: ESO

Resem­bling a cat’s paw from Earth, this glow­ing cloud of hydro­gen gas spans 50 light-years. The Cat’s Paw Neb­ula, or NGC 6334, is a vast, active stel­lar nurs­ery. It is also home to some of the most mas­sive stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. These stars are only a few mil­lion years old; just younglings in the uni­verse. Our Sun, by com­par­i­son, is 4.5 bil­lion years old and is con­sid­ered middle-aged. Mas­sive stars form in this cloud because of the abun­dance of gas and dust; both ingre­di­ents for mak­ing baby stars. The mas­sive stars will only live a short time how­ever. In just tens of mil­lions of years, these stars will explode in super­novae. These blasts will spread gas far and wide. The shock­waves will squeeze gas and dust together cre­at­ing areas for new stars to form.

Explore the neb­ula. The Cat’s Paw Neb­ula is an emis­sion neb­ula. Radi­a­tion and solar winds stream­ing from stars within the cloud excite hydro­gen atoms caus­ing them to glow red. What other shapes or sto­ries can you see in the neb­ula? Share them in our com­ments. This beau­ti­ful image was taken by the Euro­pean South­ern Observatory’s Wide Field Imager instru­ment.

Also known as the Bear Claw Neb­ula, NGC 6334 hides many baby stars in its dusty glow. Astronomers believe that the Cat’s Paw Neb­ula could con­tain tens of thou­sands of stars. NGC 6334 lies about 5,500 light-years from Earth toward the con­stel­la­tion of Scor­pius, the Scor­pion.