June 28, 2016

The Spider Nebula

Spider Nebula

Located in the constellation Auriga, IC 417 lies about 10,000 light-years away. It is in the outer part of the Milky Way, almost exactly in the opposite direction from the galactic center.

A cluster of young stars called "Stock 8" can be seen at center right. The light from this cluster carves out a bowl in the nearby dust clouds, seen here as green fluff. Along the sinuous tail in the center and to the left, groupings of red point sources are also young stars.

In this image, infrared wavelengths, which are invisible to the unaided eye, have been assigned visible colors. Light with a wavelength of 1.2 microns, detected by 2MASS, is shown in blue. The Spitzer wavelengths of 3.6 and 4.5 microns are green and red, respectively.


Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/2MASS
Explanation from: http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia20357/the-spider-nebula

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