spiral nebula: see galaxy.

planetary nebula: see nebula.

nebula [Lat.,=mist], in astronomy, observed manifestation of a collection of highly rarefied gas and dust in interstellar space. Prior to the 1960s this term was also applied to bodies later discovered to be galaxies, e.g., the so-called Great Nebula in the constellation Andromeda. In 1864, William Huggins confirmed William Herschel's conclusion that nebulae are not swarms of stars by determining that the spectra of nebulae are made of bright lines characteristic of radiating gases. Diffuse nebulae and planetary nebulae are two major classifications of these objects. Diffuse nebulae appear as light or dark clouds (called bright and dark nebulae), are irregular in shape, and range up to 100 light-years in diameter. Some bright nebulae, composed primarily of hydrogen gas ionized by nearby hot blue-white stars, radiate their own light; they are called emission nebulae and are characterized by narrow spectral emission lines. Other bright nebulae, existing near cooler stars and not receiving the radiation necessary to make them self-luminous, reflect the starlight and are called reflection nebulae. Over 300 bright nebulae have been cataloged; prime examples are the Orion Nebula, visible to the unaided eye, the Eta Carinae Nebula, and the smaller North America Nebula. Dark nebulae are detected as empty patches in a field of stars or as dark clouds obscuring part of a bright nebula in the background, as in the case of the Horsehead Nebula. Smaller bodies of dark nebulous matter having unusually high densities have been observed in some bright nebulous regions. Many astronomers believe that these bodies, called globules, are in the process of condensation and are the initial stages in the birth of stars. Planetary nebulae appear through the telescope as small disks with well-defined boundaries. They are the last stage of evolution for most stars, including the sun. Each consists of a shell of gaseous material surrounding a central hot star that emits radiation causing this material to glow. These shells measure about 20,000 AU in diameter (1 AU is the mean distance between the earth and the sun) and are slowly expanding, which suggests that they were expelled by the stars in nova eruptions.

Ring nebula, planetary nebula in the northern constellation Lyra; cataloged as M57 or NGC 6720. It is perhaps the most famous and beautiful nebula of this type. Its name describes the appearance of the expanding shell of gas. The nebula is estimated to be more than 5,000 light-years distant.

Orion Nebula, bright diffuse nebula in the constellation Orion; also known as the Great Nebula of Orion and cataloged as M42 or NGC 1976. It is located near the middle of the "sword" hanging from Orion's "belt" of stars. Its central bright region is about 1° in diameter and it has a total extension of 3°. It is about 1,000 light-years distant and as many as 60 light-years in diameter. The nebula is an enormous cloud of gas surrounding a cluster of very hot young stars. To the naked eye the nebula appears to be a faint star but becomes a vague patch of light when viewed through binoculars. The bright region is divided into two sections, the northeast portion being cataloged separately as M43 or NGC 1982. The Orion Nebula is the nearest major site to earth of massive star formation.

North American Nebula, bright diffuse nebula in the northern constellation Cygnus about 1000 light-years away; cataloged as NGC 7000. It has a configuration resembling parts of Canada and the United States (including the Gulf of Mexico), Mexico, and Central America.

Lagoon Nebula, bright, diffuse nebula in the southern constellation Sagittarius; cataloged as M8 or NGC 6526. It is visible to the naked eye and has an angular area larger than that of the full moon. The central parts are extremely bright, and some stars can be seen embedded in the nebulosity. Because of the nebula's large size, light from its stars cannot illuminate all of the associated interstellar gas and dust. Thus, parts of it appear blacker than the surrounding sky.

Horsehead Nebula, dark nebula located in the constellation Orion; designated IC 434 or B 33. It consists of a cloud of nonluminous interstellar matter resembling the outline of a horse's head and appears against the background of a bright emission nebula. The Horsehead Nebula measures about 4 min of arc at its greatest width. It is located near the belt of Orion at a distance of about 1,600 light-years from the earth.

Crab Nebula, diffuse gaseous nebula in the constellation Taurus; cataloged as NGC 1952 and M1, the first object recorded in Charles Messier's catalog of nonstellar objects. It is the remnant of a supernova that was observed in 1054 by Chinese and Arab astronomers to be as bright as Venus; markings in northern New Mexico depict a star near a crescent moon that might be a record of this supernova. Only three other supernovas have been observed in our galaxy since then. The explosion of the Crab Nebula produced a large expanding shell of delicate filaments. The filaments contain ionized gas in which unusually energetic electrons twist through magnetic fields at speeds close to that of light, emitting synchrotron radiation. Although this radiation is what makes supernova remnants visible in radio wavelengths, in this nebula it is so strong that observers can see the filaments through moderate-sized optical telescopes under good conditions. The nebula is also a strong emitter of X rays. At its center is a pulsar, PSR 0531+21, that spins 30 times per second. The youngest pulsar observed, it gives off radiation at radio, optical, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gammay ray wavelengths, as well as electrons that power the synchrotron radiation in the surrounding nebula.

Gaseous cloud from which, in the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system, the Sun and planets formed by condensation. In 1755 Immanuel Kant suggested that a nebula gradually pulled together by its own gravity developed into the Sun and planets. Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace, in 1796 proposed a similar model, in which a rotating and contracting cloud of gas—the young Sun—shed concentric rings of matter that condensed into the planets. But James Clerk Maxwell showed that, if all the matter in the known planets had once been distributed this way, shearing forces would have prevented such condensation. Another objection was that the Sun has less angular momentum than the theory seems to require. In the early 20th century most astronomers preferred the collision theory: that the planets formed as a result of a close approach to the Sun by another star. Eventually, however, stronger objections were mounted to the collision theory than to the nebular hypothesis, and a modified version of the latter—in which a rotating disk of matter gave rise to the planets through successively larger agglomerations, from dust grains through planetesimals and protoplanets—became the prevailing theory of the solar system's origin.

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Any of a class of bright nebulae that may somewhat resemble planets when viewed through a small telescope but are, in fact, expanding shells of luminous gas around dying stars. A planetary nebula is the outer envelope shed by a red giant star not massive enough to become a supernova. Instead, the star's intensely hot core becomes exposed (see white dwarf star) and ionizes the surrounding shell of gas, which is expanding at tens of miles per second.

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Any of various tenuous clouds of gas and dust in interstellar space. Nebulae constitute only a small percentage of a galaxy's mass. Dark nebulae (e.g., the Coalsack) are very dense, cold molecular clouds that appear as large, obscure, irregularly shaped areas in the sky. Bright nebulae (e.g., the Crab Nebula, planetary nebula) appear as faintly luminous, glowing surfaces; they emit their own light or reflect that of stars near them. The term nebula also formerly referred to galaxies outside the Milky Way Galaxy.

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Bright nebula, faintly visible to the unaided eye in the sword of the hunter's figure in the constellation Orion. About 1,500 light-years from Earth, it contains hundreds of very hot young stars clustered about a group of four massive stars known as the Trapezium. Radiation primarily from these four stars excites the nebula to glow. Discovered in the early 17th century, it was the first nebula to be photographed (1880).

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Bright nebula in the constellation Taurus, about 5,000 light-years from Earth. Roughly 12 light-years in diameter, it is the remnant of a supernova, first observed by Chinese and other astronomers in 1054, that was visible in daylight for 23 days and at night for almost two years. Identified as a nebula circa 1731, it was named (for its form) in the mid-19th century. In 1921 it was discovered to be still expanding; the present rate is about 700 mi/second (1,100 km/second). The Crab is one of the few astronomical objects from which electromagnetic radiation has been detected over the entire measurable spectrum. In the late 1960s a pulsar, thought to be the collapsed remnant star of the supernova, was found near its centre.

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