Astronomy Picture of the Day

Explanation: Nebulae are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw Nebula visible in Scorpius. At 5,500 light years distant, Cat's Paw is an emission nebula with a red color that originates from an abundance of ionized hydrogen atoms. Alternatively known as the Bear Claw Nebula or NGC 6334, stars nearly ten times the mass of our Sun have been born there in only the past few million years. Pictured above, a deep wide-field image of the Cat's Paw nebula was photographed from New South Wales, Australia.

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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
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Publications with keywords: emission nebula
Publications with words: emission nebula
See also:

• Emission Nebula IC 1396
• Three Nebulae in Narrow Band
• The Elephant s Trunk in IC 1396
• Tentacles of the Tarantula Nebula
• The Tulip in the Swan
• The Cone Nebula Neighborhood
• Stars, Dust and Nebula in NGC 2170

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