Pass the cranberry sauce! A distant star-forming nebula looks like a turkey fleeing a cosmic Christmas dinner in a new telescope image. The festive photo, taken by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, features the star-hatching clouds of gas and dust that comprise the nebula IC 2944, located around 6,500 light-years from Earth. IC 2944 has a distinctly fowl-like appearance, so astronomers have nicknamed it the “Running Chicken Nebula.” In the stunning new 1.5-billion-pixel VLT image, the wispy gas and dust tendrils of the nebula…
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A star exploded 10,000 years ago and left us with the gorgeous Veil Nebula (photo)
Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular images of the night sky. As a European Southern Observatory Photo Ambassador and member of The World At Night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, he specializes in astronomical “Skyscapes” that connect both Earth and the night sky. The Veil Nebula, also known as the Cygnus Loop, was created when a massive star went supernova and exploded some 10,000 years ago in the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan, about 1,400 light-years away. The Veil Nebula…
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