Lagoon Nebula

Description

Lagoon Nebula is a vast stellar nursery in the constellation Sagittarius and visible with binoculars as an oval smudge of light with a brighter core. Mapped by the Hubble telescope, an enormous young star 200,000 times brighter than our Sun – Herschel 36 – is emerging from a cocoon of material, blasting ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds of subatomic particles – pushing away streaming clouds of cosmic gas and dust.

Layers of colour show denser areas that are resistant to erosion and serve as incubators to numerous fledgling stars.