emission nebula

  • Exploring the Milky Way’s Spiral Arms

    Exploring the Milky Way’s Spiral Arms

    The Milky Way — our home galaxy — is a spiral galaxy, a classification I often describe as pinwheel-shaped. The main difference between a spiral galaxy’s shape and a pinwheel’s shape is that spiral galaxies, like the Milky Way, only…

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  • What is Contagious Star Formation?

    What is Contagious Star Formation?

    Recognize this nebula? Yeah…we’re talking about the Orion Nebula again. I know, we already took a tour through the Orion constellation in my last post…but there’s still more to cover about how stars come to life, and Orion is still the…

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  • What is a Nebula Made of?

    What is a Nebula Made of?

    What you see here is the Trifid Nebula, a vast cloud of gas and dust in space. In my last post, we explored why it looks the way it does. We discovered that the pink hues of emission nebulae are caused…

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  • What is a Nebula?

    What is a Nebula?

    What’s a nebula? Well…you’re looking at one. Okay, okay, I know. You want to know what that actually is. You want to know why it’s there. You want to know why there are colors in space…and why you’ve never noticed…

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