At all times, one of the favorite objects of astronomers was the space flowers. In this article, we will discuss this topic in more detail.
Space tulip.
Tulip's emission nebula amazes with its beauty and delicate pastel tones. It was named for its characteristic photographic similarity to the tulip. The image shows the most miraculous combination of different colors and shades in the form of a tulip bowl: red, green and blue are the colors of radiation from ionized sulfur, hydrogen, and atomic oxygen.
Powerful ultraviolet radiation from a bright young star in the center of the space tulip ionizes atoms and gives energy to glow the nebula.
The luminous interstellar gas and dust cloud is also known under other names, Sharpless or the Cygnus Star Cloud. This space object is located in the northern constellation of the Swan at a distance of about 8 thousand light-years from the Earth.
Iris Nebula.
Like gentle cosmic petals, these interstellar gas clouds and dust have blossomed at a distance of 1300 light-years in the starfield of the constellation Cepheus. This is the Iris Nebula, which is cataloged as NGC 7023 and so named for its appearance, which is associated with this flower.
Space rose.
The translucent shimmering red structure shown on the image represents the remains of a star located in the constellation of the Golden Fish, belonging to the galaxy Big Magellanic Cloud. Its ancestor was a white dwarf, a solar-type star at the final stage of evolution. This nebula, codenamed SNR 0519, was formed about 600 years ago. The space rose keeps the memory of the last days of the dead star.
Despite the fact that the Great Magellanic Cloud is at least 10 times smaller than the Milky Way, astronomers find many supernovae in it, which indicates the intensive processes of star formation taking place in this star system for hundreds of millions of years.
Camellia.
A space telescope found a fragile flower in the constellation of Lyra - the Ring Nebula, or M 57. Under favorable conditions, the nebula can be seen even in 50 mm binoculars.
And its appearance is very beautiful! Surrounded by beautiful star fields, it seems like a tiny oval spot, slightly sparkling on the edges. But if you look at this planetary nebula in a telescope, its outer shell looks surprisingly similar to the delicate petals of a camellia flower. The planetary nebula is a shell of material thrown away by a dying star.
The M57 was discovered by the French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pelepois in 1779 with a 2.5-inch refractor. In such an instrument, of course, he could not see the details of its structure and wrote: "...the size of Jupiter and resembles a dull planet. That's after this kind of message for the M57 and other similar nebulae and fixed the name "planetary".
Now planetary nebulae are separated into a separate class of space objects, but they have nothing to do with the planets.
As one of the best examples of planetary nebula M57 is a favorite target of amateur astronomers.
The Cocoon Nebula appears as a scarlet flower in the depths of space.
The nebula is located in the constellation of the Swan. It can be found in the north of the constellation, near the border with the constellation of the Lizard. The shape of the nebula resembles a bright flower or cocoon, which is wrapped in a star of the 10th stellar size. It is this star that makes the gas glow around it, warming it up with ultraviolet radiation.
Valentine's Rose
NGC 7129 is a scattered cluster of reflective nebulae located in the constellation of Cepheus.
The name "Valentine's Rose" was given to NGC 7129 for its extraordinary similarity to the flower and in honor of Valentine's Day. Red is hot gas, green is carbon monoxide.
Inside the dust- and gas-rich NGC 7129 there is an active star formation. Despite its relatively small size (about 10 light-years), it consists of 130 bright young stars about a million years old.
The three-part nebula is very similar to the purple violet.
The nebula of indescribable beauty, also known as M20 and NGC 6514, is visible through good binoculars in the constellation of Sagittarius. It is home to the energetic processes of star formation. It is a space star nursery full of color contrasts.
Dark dust fibers, which separate M20 into parts, were formed in the atmosphere of cold giant stars and from the substance thrown out by supernovae explosions. The light of M20 that we see now has left it about 3000 years ago. The nebula is about 5,000 light-years away from Earth.
The three-part nebula is called because it brings together three types of nebulae: emission nebulae formed by the radiation of hydrogen atoms, blue reflective nebulae with a glow of dust reflecting stellar light, and dark nebulae from the silhouettes of dense dust clouds on the background of radiation areas.
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