They call this the Swan nebula, but don’t let the serene nickname fool you. It’s a battlezone, where solar winds from super-massive stars collide, creating “bow shocks” like the wake of a speedboat.
This new image, from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, shows a turbulent star-forming region, where rivers of gas and stellar winds erode thickets of dusty material. It’s one of the best examples we’ve seen yet of the gas ripples that can form around stars in “choppy cosmic waters.” Image by AP/NASA/JPL.
