Giant "Twisters", Star Wisps And Hats In The Lagoon Nebula

Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
January 22, 1997

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image reveals a pair of one-half light-year long interstellar "twisters" -- eerie funnels and twisted-rope structures (upper left) -- in the heart of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) which lies 5,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.

The central hot star, O Herschel 36 (lower right), is the primary source of the ionizing radiation for the brightest region in the nebula, called the Hourglass. Other hot stars, also present in the nebula, are ionizing the extended optical nebulosity. The ionizing radiation induces photo-evaporation of the surfaces of the clouds (seen as a blue "mist" at the right of the image), and drives away violent stellar winds tearing into the cool clouds.

Analogous to the spectacular phenomena of Earth tornadoes, the large difference in temperature between the hot surface and cold interior of the clouds, combined with the pressure of starlight, may produce strong horizontal shear to twist the clouds into their tornado-like appearance. Though the spiral shapes suggest the clouds are "twisting", future observations will be needed, perhaps with Hubble's next generation instruments, with the spectroscopic capabilities of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) or the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), to actually measure velocities.

This Hubble picture reveals a variety of small scale structures in the interstellar medium, small dark clouds called Bok globules, bow shocks around stars, ionized wisps, rings, knots and jets.

The Lagoon Nebula and nebulae in other galaxies are sites where new stars are being born from dusty molecular clouds. These regions are the "space laboratories" for the astronomers to study how stars form and the interactions between the winds from stars and the gas nearby. By studying the wealth of data revealed by HST, astronomers will understand better how stars form in the nebulae.

These color-coded images are the combination of individual exposures taken in July and September, 1995 with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) through three narrow-band filters (red light -- ionized sulphur atoms, blue light -- double ionized oxygen atoms, green light -- ionized hydrogen).

This work is based on public data retrieved from the HST Archive, cosmic-ray cleaned, calibrated and combined by Adeline Caulet (Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility, European Space Agency). The data were collected as part of a scientific HST program by the WFPC2 Science Team.

The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA), for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).