New photo shows stellar life and death thousands of light-years from Earth

Death and new life meet in a photo showing off a nebula located 7,500 light-years away. 

The Carina Nebula — recently photographed by the VISTA telescope in the Southern Hemisphere — is a 300-light-year-across area of gas and dust that gives rise to brand new stars as other, older objects die.

It’s thought to be one of the largest regions of star formation in the Milky Way, according to the European Southern Observatory (ESO). That makes this new view of the nebula all the better. 

“The massive stars in the interior of this cosmic bubble emit intense radiation that causes the surrounding gas to glow. By contrast, other regions of the nebula contain dark pillars of dust cloaking newborn stars,” the ESO said in a statement. Read more…

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