Butterfly Nebula glows red in spectacular image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

[Judi Lynn]

By Stefanie Waldek published 4 days ago

Forget looking for shapes in clouds — it's all about looking for shapes in nebulas.



The Butterfly Nebula, also known as W40, as seen by NASA's now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

A butterfly-shaped stellar nursery twinkles in red and orange in a beautiful photo recently released by NASA.

The agency's Spitzer Space Telescope captured the image of the aptly named Butterfly Nebula, also known as Westerhout 40 (W40), as part of the Massive Young Stellar Clusters Study in Infrared and X-rays survey in 2014. W40 is located some 1,400 light-years from the sun — roughly the same distance as the Orion Nebula, but in the opposite direction in the sky.

"The butterfly's two 'wings' are giant bubbles of hot, interstellar gas blowing from the hottest, most massive stars in this region," NASA officials said in a statement.

Stars up to 10 times the mass of the sun are developing within the nebula, but with the birth of these stars comes the death of other formations. "Besides being beautiful, W40 exemplifies how the formation of stars results in the destruction of the very clouds that helped create them," NASA officials said in the statement.

More:
https://www.space.com/spitzer-telescope-butterfly-nebula-w40-photo

[eppur_se_muova]

1. I would have called that the 'Starschild' nebula.

(Do I need to point out that it's definitely male ?)