Witch-head nebula captured by WISE telescope
Even space is getting into the Halloween spirit. Researchers just released this photo of a distant nebula. Look at the clouds - do you see the profile of a wicked witch?
The head is a massive cloud of gas that takes its color from reflective light of nearby stars.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory astronomer Amy Mainser says the area is also a breeding ground for stars: while they may look like warts, those red dobs along her chin are young stars being born, she told ScienceNow.
The JPL scientists captured the image using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope. The space-based WISE captured the image between 2010 and early 2011, when it scanned the entire sky.
"We were going back through the data set when we stumbled into this clump of clouds, and I was wondering what it was," Mainzer said. "I was looking at just little bits of it, because I was really looking for asteroids, but then I pulled back and said, 'Oh my God! It is the witch head nebula!'"
WISE was recently spurred back to action after a two-year hiatus. Starting next year, it will be used to locate near-Earth asteroids; from 2010-2011, it scanned the entire sky.
