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Credit & Copyright: Stefan Steve Bemmerl & Team Wolfatorium (Hakos/Namibia)
Explanation:
Nebulas are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps
cats
are for getting into
trouble.
Still, no known cat could have created the vast
Cat's Paw Nebula
visible toward
the constellation of the Scorpion
(Scorpius.
At 5,500
light years
distant, Cat's
Paw is an
emission nebula with a red color that originates from an abundance of
ionized
hydrogen atoms.
Alternatively known as the
Bear
Claw Nebula and cataloged as
NGC 6334,
stars nearly ten times the mass of our
Sun have been born
there in only the past few million years.
Pictured
here is
a deep field image of the
Cat's Paw
Nebula in light emitted by
hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Cat's Paw nebula - emission nebula
Publications with words: Cat's Paw nebula - emission nebula
See also:
- APOD: 2024 June 10 Á Sh2 132: The Lion Nebula
- APOD: 2024 May 1 Á IC 1795: The Fishhead Nebula
- APOD: 2024 April 24 Á Dragons Egg Bipolar Emission Nebula
- APOD: 2024 March 13 Á The Seagull Nebula
- APOD: 2024 February 21 Á Seagull Nebula over Pinnacles Peak
- NGC 1893 and the Tadpoles of IC 410
- The Light, the Dark, and the Dusty