APOD: 2021 May 2 - Clouds of the Carina Nebula

What an absolutely awesome color image capture of the Clouds of the Carina Nebula, Maj William W. 'Bill' Price!!! It is magnificent!!! Outstanding APOD!!!

I was so fascinated by this image of the Carina Nebula that I had to find a short video of it, and I found a short 2:33 minute clip provided by the European Space Observatory which provides some tremendous detail... I offer it as an excellent adjunct to your most intriguing image of the Carina Nebula... I am sure your followers will enjoy it, my friend... Here is the link: https://youtu.be/Kn7aVuzdFc8

Here is a short write up by the ESO:

The VISTA telescope has allowed us to peer through the hot gas and dark dust shrouding the spectacular Carina nebula to show us myriad stars, both newborn and in their death throes.

The Carina Nebula, one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the night sky, has been beautifully imaged by ESO’s VISTA telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. By observing in infrared light, VISTA has peered through the hot gas and dark dust enshrouding the nebula to show us myriad stars, both newborn and in their death throes.

About 7500 light-years away, in the constellation of Carina, lies a nebula within which stars form and perish side-by-side. Shaped by these dramatic events, the Carina Nebula is a dynamic, evolving cloud of thinly spread interstellar gas and dust.

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. There’s a battle raging between stars and dust in the Carina Nebula, and the newly formed stars are winning — they produce high-energy radiation and stellar winds which evaporate and disperse the dusty stellar nurseries in which they formed.

Spanning over 300 light-years, the Carina Nebula is one of the Milky Way's largest star-forming regions and is easily visible to the unaided eye under dark skies. Unfortunately for those of us living in the north, it lies 60 degrees below the celestial equator, so is visible only from the Southern Hemisphere.

Within this intriguing nebula, Eta Carinae takes pride of place as the most peculiar star system. This stellar behemoth — a curious form of stellar binary— is the most energetic star system in this region and was one of the brightest objects in the sky in the 1830s. It has since faded dramatically and is reaching the end of its life, but remains one of the most massive and luminous star systems in the Milky Way.

Eta Carinae can be seen in this image as part of the bright patch of light just above the point of the “V” shape made by the dust clouds. Directly to the right of Eta Carinae is the relatively small Keyhole Nebula — a small, dense cloud of cold molecules and gas within the Carina Nebula — which hosts several massive stars, and whose appearance has also changed drastically over recent centuries.



Enjoy!
Kerry
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Thank you my friend Maj William W. 'Bill' Price for posting the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for Sunday, May 2, 2021 entitled "Clouds of the Carina Nebula."

Image: Clouds of the Carina Nebula - Image Credit & Copyright - John Ebersole

APOD background
"Explanation: What forms lurk in the mists of the Carina Nebula? The dark ominous figures are actually molecular clouds, knots of molecular gas and dust so thick they have become opaque. In comparison, however, these clouds are typically much less dense than Earth's atmosphere. Featured here is a detailed image of the core of the Carina Nebula, a part where both dark and colorful clouds of gas and dust are particularly prominent. The image was captured in mid-2016 from Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. Although the nebula is predominantly composed of hydrogen gas -- here colored green, the image was assigned colors so that light emitted by trace amounts of sulfur and oxygen appear red and blue, respectively. The entire Carina Nebula, cataloged as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light years and lies about 7,500 light-years away in the constellation of Carina. Eta Carinae, the most energetic star in the nebula, was one of the brightest stars in the sky in the 1830s, but then faded dramatically.'


Thank you my friend Sgt (Join to see) for mentioning me.

Mike Oldfield - Far Above The Clouds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8UAlSpIpgI&list=RDV8uo5nlo55A&index=23
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen LTC (Join to see)MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Sgt Albert Castro PO1 William "Chip" Nagel SSG Samuel Kermon SSG Franklin Briant A1C Riley SandersSPC Michael Oles SR TSgt David L. Maj Marty Hogan SMSgt Tom Burns SGT Denny Espinosa SPC Nancy Greene SMSgt Tom Burns

Thank you for the astronomy share brother bill.