Sh2-106 is an emission nebula and a star formation region in the constellation Cygnus estimated to be around 2,000 light-years from Earth. A young, massive star in the centre of the nebula emits jets of hot gas from its poles, forming the bipolar structure. The nebula is about 2 light-years across. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).The bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. 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.
An international team of astronomers has been able to study stellar evolution in real time. Over a period of 30 years, dramatic increases in the temperature of the star SAO 244567 have been observed. Now the star is cooling again, having been reborn into an earlier phase of stellar evolution.
The first use of adaptive optics to measure the Hubble constant appears to confirm a discrepancy in cosmologists’ understanding of how fast the universe is expanding.
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the glittering interior of one of the most active galaxies in our local neighbourhood — NGC 1569, a small starburst galaxy located about eleven million light-years away in the northern constellation of Camelopardalis. For almost 100 million years, NGC 1569 has pumped out stars over 100 times faster than the Milky Way.
