APOD 20: INSIDE THE ORION NEBULA

8 April 2014

The Great Nebula in Orion is probably one of the best known astronomical nebulas. Glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud. The colors taken in by the Hubble Space Telescope were wisps and sheets of dust and gas are particularly evident. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. 

APOD 19:ALONG THE WESTERN VEIL

2014 April 4

Delicate in appearance, these filaments of shocked, glowing gas, draped in Earth's sky towards constellation Cygnus, make up the western part of the Veil Nebula. It is a large supernova remnant, an expanding cloud born on the death explosion of a massive star. Interstellar shock waves plows through space sweeping up and exciting interstellar material. The glowing filaments are really more like long ripples in the sheet, remarkably well separated into atomic hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue) gas.