NASA's space telescope caught a prawn drifting through deep space

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an awesome image of a prawn drifting throughout deep space in the constellation Scorpius.

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The Hubble Space Telescope has peered out into the void and snapped an image of a celestial prawn drifting throughout deep space.

Located around 6,000 light-years away, the Prawn Nebula (IC 4628) is a massive stellar nursery that's located within the constellation Scorpius. A stellar nursery is a molecular cloud that houses all the ingredients that will eventually form into stars. The Prawn Nebula is 250 light-years across and doesn't emit light in wavelengths the human eye can detect, but Hubble can see it quite clearly.

The pristine image snapped by Hubble showcases the nebulas structure of energized, or ionized gas caused by the radiation of a nearby star. The radiation from the nearby star strips the hydrogen atoms located within the nebula, energizing the electrons and changing them from a higher-energy state to a lower-energy state. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out NASA's blog post on the Prawn Nebula here.

NASA explains, "The radiation from these massive stars strips electrons from the nebula's hydrogen atoms. As the energized electrons revert from their higher-energy state to a lower-energy state by recombining with hydrogen nuclei, they emit energy in the form of light, causing the nebula's gas to glow. In this image, red indicates the presence of ionized iron (Fe II) emission."

NASA's space telescope caught a prawn drifting through deep space 02
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NEWS SOURCES:nasa.gov, digitaltrends.com

Jak joined the TweakTown team in 2017 and has since reviewed 100s of new tech products and kept us informed daily on the latest science, space, and artificial intelligence news. Jak's love for science, space, and technology, and, more specifically, PC gaming, began at 10 years old. It was the day his dad showed him how to play Age of Empires on an old Compaq PC. Ever since that day, Jak fell in love with games and the progression of the technology industry in all its forms. Instead of typical FPS, Jak holds a very special spot in his heart for RTS games.

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