About 4,350 light-years away from Earth is an open cluster NGC 6530, a collection of several thousand stars located in the constellation Sagittarius, a cluster located within the Large Lagoon Nebula, which was discovered in 1654 by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna.The stars in NGC 6530 emit massive amounts of ultraviolet radiation, and ionize the gas, causing the gas to glow, NGC 6530 is a vast interstellar cloud of gas and dust within the Lagoon Nebula.
Newborn stars in NGC 6530 contain a characteristic class of luminous protoplanetary disks, and astronomers have scoured that region in the hope of finding new examples of proploids. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 has the ability to observe at near-infrared wavelengths, helping to understand star birth and the origin of exoplanetary systems.
Hubble captured several images of the Lagoon Nebula in 2010 and 2011, showing the multi-colored appearance of gas and dust as clouds of gas and dust spread from side to side in the Lagoon Nebula. Hubble’s Advanced Camera and Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 used Hubble’s Advanced Camera and Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 to capture this image of what appears to be a swirling wall of smoke studded with stars.
