WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.670 "Hubble Science" 2 00:00:05.670 --> 00:00:12.800 "Starbirth Nebulae: Cosmic Cradles" 3 00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:20.240 These beautiful colorful images that  everyone loves from Hubble, the nebulae. 4 00:00:20.240 --> 00:00:30.720 I love them, they're colorful, they're beautiful,  but they're signposts of star formation. 5 00:00:30.720 --> 00:00:37.120 The reason these gas clouds are so colorful is that  there are massive stars, bigger than our sun, that   6 00:00:37.120 --> 00:00:45.360 have recently formed, recently in a cosmic sense.  But perhaps within the last million years or so   7 00:00:45.360 --> 00:00:50.960 these stars have coalesced, and their radiation  is so powerful that it goes out and ionizes the   8 00:00:50.960 --> 00:01:01.760 surrounding gas which creates these beautiful  colors. So astronomers see these colorful nebulae,   9 00:01:01.760 --> 00:01:06.560 such that Hubble reveals in great detail, and  we say oh that's beautiful, but we also say,   10 00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:12.160 Aha! That's a sign that star formation is still  active in this region. We can hone in with Hubble   11 00:01:12.160 --> 00:01:18.560 and other telescopes and see exactly what's going  on in the continuation of star formation in these   12 00:01:18.560 --> 00:01:23.760 regions. We didn't really realize, when Hubble  was launched, that we could see such details   13 00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:29.040 about the dynamics of continuing star formation;  and that's something that now people love Hubble   14 00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:39.840 for are these beautiful images of activity  in our galaxy and in other galaxies as well. 15 00:01:39.840 --> 00:02:01.204 [ MUSIC ]