Twisting Butterfly
Credit: A. Caulet (ST-ECF, ESA) and NASA
Twisting in space we find a starry butterfly. This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the Lagoon Nebula, or M8. But in the center of the swirling, twister-like nebula, there seems to be a glowing yellow butterfly. This bright area is also called the Hourglass.
The twisters within the Lagoon Nebula are similar to Earth tornadoes. Huge changes in temperature in the dust clouds combined with the solar winds from hot stars may cause the clouds to twist. If you explore the image a bit more, you can see little dark globs, called Bok globules, bow shocks around stars, rings and knots. The Lagoon Nebula and other similar nebula are places where stars are born.
The Lagoon Nebula lies about 5,000 light years away toward the constellation of Sagittarius.
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