Pillars in the Carina Nebula (HH901)

  • Released Wednesday, April 11, 2018
  • Updated Tuesday, May 8, 2018 at 8:03AM
  • ID: 30940

This animation shows Herbig Haro 901 (HH901), a large pillar of gas and dust with eruptive young stars inside the Carina Nebula. The animation reveals the object in two Hubble Space Telescope images: first in visible light and then in infrared light.

Herbig Haro 901 is an immense pillar of gas and dust inside the Carina Nebula, a huge star-forming region in our galaxy. The pillar is several light-years tall and contains a few massive young stars. They shoot out powerful jets that emerge from the cloud. In some cases, the jets create bow-shock patterns similar to the effects of a ship plowing through the ocean. In the visible-light (Hubble) view, very few stars can be seen because the gas and dust block starlight. But in the infrared (Hubble) view, stars become visible and numerous. The visible-light colors emerge from the glow of different gases: oxygen (blue), hydrogen/nitrogen (green), and sulfur (red). The Carina Nebula is approximately 7,500 light years from Earth.
Visible light image of the Pillars in the Carina Nebula.

Visible light image of the Pillars in the Carina Nebula.

Infrared light image of the Pillars in the Carina Nebula.

Infrared light image of the Pillars in the Carina Nebula.

Visible and Infrared light image of the Pillars in the Carina Nebula.

Visible and Infrared light image of the Pillars in the Carina Nebula.



Credits

Please give credit for this item to: Video: NASA, ESA and G. Bacon (STScI) Image: NASA, ESA,and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)


Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Datasets used in this visualization

Hubble Space Telescope
Observed Data

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.



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