The Cosmos with NGC 3372

A new telescope facility at the Paranal Observatory in Chile has captured its very first images. Named the Search for Habitable Planets Eclipsing Ultracool Stars (SPECULOOS) Southern Observatory, the facility consists of four 1-meter telescopes — each of which is named after one of Jupiter’s Galilean moons — that will search the cosmos for potentially habitable exoplanets orbiting ultracool stars and brown dwarfs. For its “first light” image, the Europa telescope captured this view of the Carina Nebula.

The Carina Nebula (catalogued as NGC 3372; also known as the Grand Nebula, Great Nebula in Carina, or Eta Carinae Nebula) is a large, complex area of bright and dark nebulosity in the constellation Carina, and is located in the Carina–Sagittarius Arm. The nebula lies at an estimated distance between 6,500 and 10,000 light-years (2,000 and 3,100 pc) from Earth.

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