Lagoon Nebula: Visible and Infrared Views

  • Released Monday, April 30, 2018
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This video compares the colorful Hubble Space Telescope visible-light image of the core of the Lagoon Nebula and a Hubble infrared-light view of the same region.

This visible-light image of the central region of the Lagoon Nebula reveals a fantasy landscape of ridges, canyons, pillars, and mountains of gas and dust surrounding a very hot newborn star. When the visible view crossfades into an image taken in near-infrared light, the most obvious difference is the abundance of stars that fill the field of view. Most of them are more distant, background stars located behind the nebula itself. However, some of these pinpricks of light are young stars within the Lagoon Nebula. Only the densest of the gas clouds remain in the infrared view.

This animation is the same as above, played twice as fast.

Hubble Infrared image of the Lagoon Nebula.

Hubble Infrared image of the Lagoon Nebula.

8K Hubble Infrared image of the Lagoon Nebula.

Hubble Optical image of the Lagoon Nebula.

Hubble Optical image of the Lagoon Nebula.

8K Hubble Optical image of the Lagoon Nebula.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:

Video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Optical and Infrared images: NASA, ESA, and STScI

This page was originally published on Monday, April 30, 2018.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 12:40 AM EST.

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