NASA has shared some interstellar fireworks to bring 2020 to an end. The Orion Nebula looks like a rainbow cloth peppered with dots.

NASA has shared some interstellar fireworks to bring 2020 to an end. The Orion Nebula looks like a rainbow cloth peppered with dots.

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orion newel
A composite image of the Orion Nebula, seen through the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. NASA / JPL-Caltech STScI

  • NASA’s last “Image of the Day” for 2020 depicts the Orion Nebula, located 1,500 light-years from Earth.

  • The Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes captured the beautiful, colorful image.

  • Nebulae are giant clouds of gas and dust where new stars are born.

  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

NASA has decided to share interstellar fireworks to end an unforgettable year.

The agency posts a ‘picture of the day’ every day, and the final image of 2020 did not disappoint.

A color canvas, NASA’s image of the day on December 31, shows a composite image of the Orion Nebula captured by the Hubble Space and Spitzer Space Telescopes.

It is located more than 1,500 light-years from Earth.

Nebulae like these are interstellar nurseries – giant clouds of gas and dust in space rocking baby stars as they are born. Some nebulae form like stars die: as the core of a star cools, it begins to shed its outer layers, spreading to form gaseous clouds.

A rainbow cloth

To the naked eye, nebulae would not actually look like rainbow cloths peppered with dots (which usually form new stars).

Cepheus Nebula
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has captured two nebulae, or clouds of gas and dust. On the left, baby stars (the red and yellow dots) are born in a dark clearing of the nebula. NASA / JPL-Caltech

When space telescopes like the Hubble make up the hydrogen, sulfur and carbon molecules like nebulae like Orion, it does not capture color. Hubble instead records light particles, which NASA can then see through different filters that only allow certain wavelengths of color. Then they assign color to the particles that come through the filters (for example, if there is a red color of light coming through the red filter.)

Helixnevel
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope captured this image of the Helix Nebula, located in the constellation Aquarius, about 700 light-years from Earth. NASA / JPL-Caltech / Univ. of Arizona

By combining images of the same nebula viewed with different filters, the agency can create a composite color image as shown above.

“We often use color as a tool, whether it is to enhance the detail of an object or to visualize what can usually never be seen by the human eye,” NASA said.

There are about 3000 nebulae in our galaxy.

The nebula closest to our planet is the Helix Nebula, the cosmic remnant of a dying star. This is about half the distance from Earth as the Orion Nebula is – 700 light-years (so if you traveled at the speed of light, it would take you 700 years to get there).

The Hubble Space Telescope has been depicting nebulae for 30 years, and these images are helping scientists learn more about how these cosmic clouds evolve over time, or even fade and shrink.

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