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Near the center of the image shines a bright star with four spikes. It forms a vertex of a triangle of wispy blue and blue-white light that forms the emission nebula taking up about a third of the image. To the right and above the bright star, the image quickly fades from pale red to black, which is where a dense cloud of dust blocks our view of the nebula.

Emission Nebula NGC 2313

This Hubble Space Telescope captures the emission nebula NGC 2313. The bright star V565 — surrounded by four prominent diffraction spikes (an artifact caused by light reflecting off Hubble's structure) — illuminates a silvery, fan-shaped veil of gas and dust, while the right half of this image is obscured by a dense cloud of dust. Nebulae with similar shapes — a star accompanied by a bright fan of gas — were once referred to as cometary nebulae, though the name is no longer used.

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, R. Sahai
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Image CreditESA/Hubble, R. Sahai
Size1904x1790px