NGC 2392 (Eskimo Nebula)

NGC 2392 also known as Caldwell 39, the clown face nebula and the eskimo nebula lies 3,000 light years away from Earth, located in the constellation of Gemini. A dying star sits at the center of the gas cloud, ejecting it's outlayers into the cosmos. The outer ring surrounding the dying star is made up of comet like structures which have streams of gas flowing from them, created by stellar winds coming from the central star. NGC 2392 was first discovered by William Herschel in England on the 17th of January 1787.

The image above was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Pillars of Creation

The image above is composed of 32 sepearate images collected from the Hubble space telescope.

Located 8,000 light years away from earth in the eagle nebula, the pillars of creation are estimated to be between 3-4 million light years in length. The star forming pillars are made up mostly of dust and Hydrogen, the gas within the pillars are literally evarporating away due to the surrounding heat radiating from nearby stars. Some theorists speculate that the pillars may have been struck by a shockwave from a supernova almost 7,000 years ago. Because light travels at a "constant" speed, we won't see the destruction of the pillars for another 1,000 years. Other theorists state that stronger volumes of x-ray and radio radiation would have been measurable if the pillars had indeed been struck by a shockwave, but this is not the case.