The Hubble Telescope -Detail of Lagoon Nebula Wall Poster

This image reveals a pair of one-half long light-year long interstellar “twisters”-eerie funnels and twisted ropelike structures - in the heart of the Lagoon Nebula, which lies 5,000 light years away in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Hot stars present in the nebula are ionizing radiation, which induces photoevaporation of the surface of the clouds and drives away violent steller winds tearing into the cool clouds. Analogous to the spectacular phenomena of Earth tornados, the large difference in temperature between the hot surface and cold interior of the clouds, combines with the pressure of starlight, may produce strong horizontal shear to twist the clouds into their tornadolike appearance. 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.

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