Famously known as the lagoon nebula, messier 8 shines by the ionizing ultraviolet radiation of its embedded young stars Clouds of gas and knots of dark dust are strewn with a scattering of bright blue stars in this hubble image of a portion of m8. The lagoon nebula (messier 8) is a bright emission nebula in the constellation sagittarius It is an active stellar nursery, an area of dust and gas in space where stars are formed A group of young, hot stars in the cloud ionize the nearby gas As the atoms in the gas recombine, they produce the light emitted by the nebula
Interstellar dust within the nebula absorbs some of this light and appears almost to divide the nebula, thus producing a lagoonlike shape. The lagoon nebula, known as messier 8, is a giant interstellar cloud located in the constellation sagittarius Giovanni hodierna discovered the nebula in 1654, and charles messier cataloged it as m8 in 1764. Look for it a few degrees above and to the right of the teapot asterism in the constellation. You can actually spot the lagoon with just a pair of binoculars or a small telescope. To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space the nasa/esa hubble space telescope took this amazing and colourful image of the lagoon nebula
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