Full disclosure — there is very little we like waking up to better than pretty pictures of space. There’s just something really soothing about images that are simultaneously extremely gorgeous and throw into stark relief our astonishing insignificance in the cosmic scheme of things — it just makes us want to crawl right back under the covers in the best possible way. It’s in this spirit that we bring you this latest picture from the European Southern Observatory’s MPG/ESO telescope — the best image ever captured of Lupus 3, a star forming cloud some 600 light-years from Earth that you can take a closer look at in the video below.
The dark cloud to the left of the frame is a mass of gasses and other star-forming material, while to the right you can see a cluster containing some of the young, bright stars that have already taken shape in this “stellar nursery.” Check out the video below for a closer, panning look at the dark cloud and it’s bright products, and happy Wednesday morning, everyone.
(via ESO)
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Published: Jan 16, 2013 09:37 am