Hubble Captures Spectacular "Landscape" in the Carina Nebula

A CLOSER LOOK

NASA image release April 22, 2010 NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this billowing cloud of cold interstellar gas and dust rising from a tempestuous stellar nursery located in the Carina Nebula, 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. This pillar of dust and gas serves as an incubator for new stars and is teeming with new star-forming activity. Hot, young stars erode and sculpt the clouds into this fantasy landscape by sending out thick stellar winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation. The low-density regions of the nebula are shredded while the denser parts resist erosion and remain as thick pillars. In the dark, cold interiors of these columns new stars continue to form. In the process of star formation, a disk around the proto-star slowly accretes onto the sta

Explore NASA's original image record for credits and available downloads.