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Hubble Serves Up a Holiday Snow Angel

Hubble serves up a holiday snow angel

The bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. The outstretched "wings" of the nebula record the contrasting imprint of heat and motion against the backdrop of a colder medium. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the "wings" of our angel. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an "hourglass" shape.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

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Last Updated
Apr 05, 2023
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NASA Hubble Mission Team

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A spiral galaxy seen directly from the side, such that its disk looks like a narrow diagonal band across the image. A band of dark dust covers the disk in the center most of the way out to the ends, and the disk glows around that. In the center of the galaxy, a whitish circle of light bulges out above and below the disk. Each end of the disk curves slightly. The background is black and mostly empty.
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