A Wreath in Space

NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, captured an imaginative image of Barnard 3, a nebula that looks like a wreath. WISE is a space telescope that sees infrared wavelengths, but it was put into hibernation in February 2011.

The green areas of the nebula are dense with dust particles, while the red cloud is relatively cooler material; new stars are being born in these clouds. The nebula is surrounded by silvery, bluish-white stars, but the star in the middle of the red cloud, HD 278942, is so bright that it causes the nebula to glow.

The nebula is about 22 light years in diameter and, because it is only 1,000 light years distant from us, it is part of our Milky Way galaxy.

The "wreath nebula," Barnard 3