The Carina Nebula, also known as NGC 3372, is an Emission Nebula in the Milky Way. This nebula is four times larger than the Orion nebula. It is located between between 6,500 and 10,000 light years from Earth. However, it is found in the night skies of the southern hemisphere. The Hubble Telescope’s 423 million pixel image of this nebula has been displayed on the TACC Tiled Display.
Today, in celebration of 20 years of Hubble, NASA has released a new image of the Carina Nebula. In the picture you can see what appears to be a tower of hydrogen and dust rise out of the nebula. This tower, however, is three light years tall.
The best recognised, longest-lived and most prolific space observatory zooms past a milestone of 20 years of operation. On 24 April 1990, the Space Shuttle and crew of STS-31 were launched to deploy the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope into a low-Earth orbit. What followed was one of the most remarkable sagas of the space age.
Video after the break.
Made in honor of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 20th year in orbit, this video zooms in on a craggy fantasy mountaintop enshrouded by wispy clouds that looks like a bizarre landscape from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The Hubble image, which is even more dramatic than fiction, captures the chaotic activity atop a pillar of gas and dust, three light-years tall, which is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being assaulted from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks.
via Starry-eyed Hubble celebrates 20 Years of awe and discovery | Press Releases | spacetelescope.org.
