Zooming Into The Cat's Paw Nebula (2010.01) [720p]

This video zooms in on the star-forming region known as the Cat's Paw Nebula (NGC 6334), which is located not far from the center of our Milky Way.

Few objects in the sky have been as well named as the Cat's Paw Nebula, a glowing gas cloud resembling the gigantic pawprint of a celestial cat out on an errand across the Universe. British astronomer John Herschel first recorded NGC 6334 in 1837 during his stay in South Africa. Despite using one of the largest telescopes in the world at the time, Herschel seems to have only noted the brightest part of the cloud, seen here towards the lower left.

NGC 6334 lies about 5500 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Scorpius (the Scorpion) and covers an area on the sky slightly larger than the full Moon. The whole gas cloud is about 50 light-years across. The nebula appears red because its blue and green light are scattered and absorbed more efficiently by material between the nebula and Earth. The red light comes predominantly from hydrogen gas glowing under the intense glare of hot young stars.

NGC 6334 is one of the most active nurseries of massive stars in our galaxy and has been extensively studied by astronomers. The nebula conceals freshly minted brilliant blue stars — each nearly ten times the mass of our Sun and born in the last few million years. The region is also home to many baby stars that are buried deep in the dust, making them difficult to study. In total, the Cat's Paw Nebula could contain several tens of thousands of stars.

Particularly striking is the red, intricate bubble in the lower right part of the image. This is most likely either a star expelling large amount of matter at high speed as it nears the end of its life or the remnant of a star that already has exploded.

This new portrait of the Cat's Paw Nebula was created from images taken with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) instrument at the 2.2-meter MPG/ESO telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, combining images taken through blue, green and red filters, as well as a special filter designed to let through the light of glowing hydrogen.


credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2/S. Guisard

source: http://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1003a/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• ESO
• astronomy
• Cat's Paw Nebula
• Scorpius
• stars
• NGC 6334

[MrBendix0]

Can I please use this video for editing purposes? If I upload anything, you'll receive full credit, i'd really appreciate it.

[djxatlanta]

@MrBendix0 - it's not my video -- it's ESO's. If you scroll to the bottom of the text description, you'll find the full credits to use and a link to download the high resolution original from ESO's website. Cheers!

[iTzzEuphoriaaaaaa]

Finally some nebulas in HD ... Lol everyone has nebula vids in shitty 480p and you can barely see detail its all fuzz.

[djxatlanta]

LOL... thanks! Do a search on my channel, and you'll find a few dozen nebula visualizations or animations -- most of them will be in 720p or 1080p. I have a media server hooked up to my entertainment system, and these videos look real sweet on a big screen.

[davidkazzmann]

Are you sure this is not some After Effects montage? IT looks too perfect... Beautiful, thought provoking.

Thanks!

[djxatlanta]

Oh, it is a montage -- the galaxy photo to start with is itself a montage of photographs of the sky taken from all over the world, and the video zooms into the ESO image of the Cat's Paw Nebula. Check out ESO's web site for more info on the galaxy panorama and other similar videos: eso [dot] org

[broderickg2]

WE. ARE. NOTHING.

[GTFOMC09]

just load a spaceship full of food an ill go exploring :P

[66jamie99]

Meow



[Knowwon249]

That nebula is a bit bigger than a cats paw.

[TenaciouslyWinning]

keep going!

[MrBendix0]

@djxatlanta Thanks! I appreciate the help :D

[Calhoun0]

My God, it's full of stars!

[jonahmoffatt]

cats paw nebula. what a cool name

[dougpage73]

sweet ride!

[HerrTelef]

Now we are on WARP 2984753r298356927