Another Station Upgrade:

The Running Chicken Nebula.

Image Credit & Copyright: Andrew Campbell

These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittariusand the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way.

In fact, 18th century cosmic touristCharles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 near the bottom of the frame. The third, NGC 6559, is right of M8, separated from the larger nebula by dark dust lanes. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant. The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20’s popular moniker is the Trifid.

In the composite image, narrowband data records ionized hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur atoms radiating at visible wavelengths. The mapping of colors and range of brightness used to compose this cosmic still life were inspired by Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers.

Just right of the Trifid one of Messier’s open star clusters,M21, is also included on the telescopic canvas.

Object Names: M8, M20, M2, NGC 6559

Image Type: Astronomical

Credit: NASA, AndrewCampbell

Time And Space

The Department of Awesome Natural Phenomena has features amazing auroras before, but never an aurora on another planet! This extraordinary sight, brought to us by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is an incredibly colossal aurora taking place on Jupiter:

“At the gas giant’s north pole, the most powerful and luminous northern lights in the solar system shimmer and glow in an endless geomagnetic storm that’s larger than our entire planet.”

That’s right, Jupiter itself is already so awesomely huge that its auroras are larger than the planet Earth.

Watch this time-lapse video of the Jupiter auroras and then visit the Hubble website to learn more about this amazing phenomena.

[via Twisted Sifter and Gizmodo]

Nebula NGC 3603

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Rosette Field 

Wings of a butterfly nebula.

Image Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA, ESA - Processing: Judy Schmidt

Sh2-119 Sharpless 119,emission nebular in Narrowband by Paul C. Swift on Flickr.

A storm on Saturn so gigantic it’s “eating” it’s own tail.

Andromeda glowing in infrared.

“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let them live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”   ~ Carl Sagan, Cosmos