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.
