(click on image to enlarge)
From NASA/ESA, May 10, 2021:
This Picture of the Week showcases the emission nebula NGC
2313. The bright star 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.
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, and 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.
Credit: ESA/Hubble, R. Sahai
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