Stunning nebula 15,000 light-years away imaged by VLT Survey Telescope
A gorgeous new image of a distant nebula has been captured by the European Southern Observatory (ESO)’s VLT Survey Telescope. It shows part of the Sh2-284 nebula, a rarely imaged but stunning cloud of dust and gas located a massive 15,000 light-years away from Earth. This nebula is a busy region of star formation, known as a stellar nursery, where young stars are born from swirls of dust and gas. As this matter moves around it forms into small clumps, which gradually grow and gather more material until they have enough gravity to attract material to them, becoming the seed of a new star....