An image from NASA goes to show just how huge the Universe is. A photograph from the Hubble telescope shows the massive Iris Nebula or NGC 7023, located around 1,400 light-years away. The cloud is so vast that spreads up to six light-years across.
One light-year is the equivalent to around six trillion miles.
NASA said the nebula is made of the usual ingredients in which the mesmeric cosmic structures are made from – dust and gas, which help to form stars, planets and ultimately solar systems.
The nebula gets its unique colouring from the stars at its heart, with the dust surrounding them scattering the light, giving the red hue.
NASA said: “This beautiful, blushing nebula is unique amongst its counterparts.
“While many of the nebulae visible in the night sky are emission nebulae — clouds of dust and gas that are hot enough to emit their own radiation and light — Caldwell 4, otherwise known as the Iris Nebula or NGC 7023, is a reflection nebula.
“This means that its colour comes from the scattered light of its central star, which lies nestled in the abundant star fields of the constellation Cepheus.
“This nebula is of particular interest to scientists because of its colours.
“Reflection nebulae glow because they are made up of extremely tiny particles of solid matter, up to 10 or even 100 times smaller than dust particles on Earth.
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In its place will come the James Webb Space Telescope, which is so powerful it can offer an insight into the early Universe, just 0.3 billion years after the Big Bang to when visible light itself was beginning to form.
NASA has said: “The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST or Webb) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, with longer wavelength coverage and greatly improved sensitivity.
“The longer wavelengths enable Webb to look much closer to the beginning of time and to hunt for the unobserved formation of the first galaxies, as well as to look inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today.”