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Lagoon Nebula
Date Issued: 2000-04-10
Postage Value: 33 cents

Commemorative issue
Hubble Space Telescope images
Lagoon Nebula

The Lagoon Nebula is estimated to be between 4,000-6,000 light years from Earth. It spans 110×50 light years or 90×40 armins in the night sky on Earth. It appears pink in time-exposure color photos, but is gray to the human eye, because of our poor color sensitivity at low light levels. The nebula contains a number of Bok globules (dark, collapsing clouds of proto-stellar material). The nebula contains a funnel cloud structure caused by a hot O-type star. At the center of the Lagoon Nebula is Hourglass Nebula. This feature should not be confused with the Hourglass Nebula in the Musca constellation. In 2006, the first evidence of star formation within the Hourglass was detected when Herbig-Haro (HH) objects were observed. HH objects are small patches of nebulosity that are associated with newly formed stars. They are formed when gas the ejected by these young stars collides with nearby clouds of gas and dust at several hundred kilometers per second. This proves that small stars are currently forming through accretion within the nebula. These nebula are proof that, despite its age, the universe is still forming and redefining itself. The observations that scientists are making today will become outdated and future scientists will have to calculate stellar shift and use other equations just to associate the stars we know with their view.

Topics: Science/Scientists (128)  Space (154)  

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