貓掌星雲

The Cat's Paw Nebula

影像版權與提供: Robert Gendler & Martin Pugh

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.

說明:
星雲會因酷似我們常見的形狀而成名，就好像貓因為常闖禍而出名一樣。
不過，沒有貓能創造出這個位在天蝎座的巨大貓掌星雲(Cat's Paw Nebula)。
離我們5,500光年遠的貓掌星雲是個發射星雲，它紅色的輝光來自大量被電離化的氫原子。
又名為熊掌星雲或NGC 6334的貓掌星雲，內部許多質量接近十倍太陽質量的恆星是最近這數百萬年才從星雲誕生出來。
上面這幅貓掌星雲的深空廣角影像，是在澳洲的新南斯威爾省拍攝的。

資料來源：Scientific American
　　　　　Department of Physics, NCKU