Astronomy Tuesday

This is called the Statue of Liberty nebula in the constellation Carina, and it's one of my favorite nebulae ever because I can actually see the Statue of Liberty in there. (Of course, I think it looks more like Superman than the Statue of Liberty. Or maybe Supergirl, if we're insisting that those long bluish tendrils are a skirt. Or Delacroix's Liberty.)

No matter what we call it -- officially it's NGC 3576 -- or think we see there, it goes about its own nebulaic business, growing new baby stars from the recycled gases of their late ancestors, and the intriguing shapes visible to us are probably the result of very active star formation.

Image Credit and Copyright: S. Mazlin, J. Harvey, R. Gilbert, and D. Verschatse (SSRO/PROMPT/UNC)