The beautiful hourglass-shaped nebula Sharpless 2-106 shines with brilliant colors in this new image from the Gemini North telescope. Giant star S106IR lies near the waist of the hourglass. Astronomers estimate the star could be up to 15 times more massive than our sun. The winds the star sends ripping through space appear to have generated the nebula’s distinctive shape. Scientists believe that... 

This Hubble Telescope snapshot unveils a pair of one-half, light-year-long interstellar “twisters” — eerie funnels and twisted-rope structures (upper left) — in the heart of the Lagoon Nebula (M8) which lies 5,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.The hot, central star, O Herschel 36 (upper left), is the primary source of the illuminating...