The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced an outstanding image of an emission nebula called NGC 2313.
This Hubble image shows the emission nebula NGC 2313. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Sahai.
NGC 2313 is an emission nebula located approximately 3,756 light-years away in the constellation of Monoceros.
Also referred to as LDN 1653 and Parsamyan 17 in astronomical catalogues, the nebula was discovered on January 4, 1862 by the German astronomer Heinrich Louis d’Arrest.
NGC 2313 is energized by a bright and young intermediate-mass star called V565.
“V565 — surrounded by four prominent diffraction spikes — illuminates a silvery, fan-shaped veil of gas and dust, while the right half of this image is obscured by a dense cloud of dust,” Hubble astronomers said.
“Nebulae with similar shapes — a star accompanied by a bright fan of gas — were once referred to as cometary nebulae, though the name is no longer used.”
“The language that astronomers use changes as we become better acquainted with the Universe,” the researchers noted.
“Astronomical history is littered with now-obsolete phrases to describe objects in the night sky, such as ‘spiral nebulae’ for spiral galaxies or ‘inferior planets’ for Mercury and Venus.”
The new image of NGC 2313 is made up of observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instrument in the near-infrared and optical parts of the spectrum.
Two filters — the wide-V (F606W) filter and the near-infrared (F814W) filter — were used to sample various wavelengths.
The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.
