Located approximately 4,000–6,000light-years from Earth, the nebula spans 110 by 50 light-years (appearing as 90' by 40' in Earth's sky). While appearing pink in long-exposure photographs, it typically appears gray when viewed throughbinoculars ortelescopes due to the human eye's limited color sensitivity in low-light conditions. The nebula contains the youngopen clusterNGC 6530 within its structure.[8]
The Lagoon Nebula features several distinctive structures, including:
Observations in 2006 revealed fourHerbig–Haro objects within the Hourglass structure, providing direct evidence of ongoingstar formation through accretion processes.[3]
^Vowler, Faith; Bolles, Dana (12 September 2024)."Messier 8".NASA Science.Archived from the original on 17 March 2025. Retrieved17 March 2025.M8 was discovered in 1654
^Kronberg, Guy McArthur, Hartmut Frommert, Christine."Messier Object 8".messier.seds.org. Retrieved11 April 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^N. F. H. Tothill; Marc Gagné; B. Stecklum; M. A. Kenworthy (2008). "The Lagoon Nebula and its Vicinity". In Bo Reipurth (ed.).Handbook of Star-Forming Regions: Volume 2 The Southern Sky. Astronomical Society of the Pacific. p. 53.ISBN978-1-58381-671-4.
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