A new image released Wednesday Feb. 20 by the European Southern Observatory shows a striking view of the nebula NGC 6357, located in the constellation Scorpius about about 8,000 light years from Earth. The image is comprised of delicate interstellar clouds dotted by gigantic blue stars. In addition to the image, ESO released a video that takes viewers through the Scorpius constellation and into the center of the nebula.
This particular formation is also known as the "Lobster nebula" due to its lobster-like appearance in visible-light images, according to ESO. This time, however, the image was taken in the infrared spectrum. Scientists chose this method so as to pierce through the cloudy foreground and obtain a clearer image of the nebula.
"One of the bright young stars in NGC 6357, known as Pismis 24-1, was thought to be the most massive star known," ESO officials said, "until it was found to actually be made up of at least three huge bright stars, each with a mass of under 100 times that of our sun. Even so, these stars are still heavyweights — some of the most massive in our Milky Way. Pismis 24-1 is the brightest object in the Pismis 24 star cluster, a bunch of stars that are all thought to have formed at the same time within NGC 6357."
Today's image was taken by ESO's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, located at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The image was taken as part of a large survey project to image the "central parts of the galaxy." The project is named the VISTA Variables in the Via Láctea.
"Vista is the largest and most powerful survey telescope every built, and is dedicated to surveying the sky in infrared light," said ESO officials. "The VVV survey is scanning the central bulge and some of the plane of our galaxy to create a huge dataset that will help astronomers to discover more about the origin of early life, and structure of the Milky Way."
