Cosmic Ice Sculptures: Dust Pillars in the Carina Nebula

[n2doc]

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010: Enjoying a frozen treat on a hot summer day can leave a sticky mess as it melts in the Sun and deforms. In the cold vacuum of space, there is no edible ice cream, but there is radiation from massive stars that is carving away at cold molecular clouds, creating bizarre, fantasy-like structures. These one-light-year-tall pillars of cold hydrogen and dust, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, are located in the Carina Nebula.

This image is a composite of Hubble observations taken of the Carina Nebula region in 2005 in hydrogen light (light emitted by hydrogen atoms) along with observations taken in oxygen light (light emitted by oxygen atoms) in 2010, both times with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The immense Carina Nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina.

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http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/29/

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. Wow I see the little dog from the Cesar dog food!

lower left corner area ;)

just sayin'...


Thanks for the post. Love learning about the universe :hi:

[shireen]

5. ROFL!

you're right!
:hi:

[xchrom]

2. There's just so much out there. Nt

[AlecBGreen]

3. according to some number crunching Ive seen...

for EVERY SINGLE grain of sand on Earth, there are 100 stars in the universe. Think about that the next time you are @ the beach!

[Permanut]

4. K&R

But if the light is gonna take 7,500 years to get here, and the universe is only 6,000 years old, then it's not here yet, right?

[shireen]

6. LOL!

we must have slipped into a temporal instability and got whisked 1500 years into the future.
:rofl: