Skip Navigation
menu close modal
Resources

RCW 120

A faint ring of gray clouds breaks at the top, looking like horns extending upward. Inside the left side and lower part of the gray ring is a thick blue cloud. A ribbon of red overlaps part of the blue cloud on the left side, but also extends just outside the gray clouds. All of this is on a black background dotted with star light.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SOFIA
Published: June 4, 2021

The ring-shaped clouds around the nebula RCW 120 were detected by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in this composite image. NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) measured the glowing gas shown in red and blue to study the nebula’s expansion speed and determine its age.

More information: https://blogs.nasa.gov/sofia/2021/06/04/science-result-surprisingly-young-nebula-hints-at-formation-of-stars-in-the-early-universe/

ENLARGE

Explore the Universe

Related

This image of the Neptune system, captured by NASA's Webb, reveals stunning views of the planet’s rings.
More
Neptune as seen by the Webb telescope, shimmering and opalescent against a black sky, with whitish rings.
Webb Captures Clear View of Neptune's Rings
This image shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching with NASA's IXPE onboard.
More
Against a dark background, a rocket launches. Visible is a nest of clouds on the ground with a bright plume of fire rising up to the top of the image. A structure is silhouetted to the left of the plume, and a water tower is visible just to the right.
IXPE Launches to Explore the Secrets of the Universe
NASA's Spitzer captured this mosaic image of the Cepheus C and Cepheus B regions in the constellation Cepheus.
More
Two cloudy nebula appear in this image, each in shades of green, yellow and red. One appears to blast across the image from the lower left just about to the top of the image just the right of center. At the top end the nebua had a bright white spot with a red halo, and trailing behind to the lower left of the image is a semi-transparent green cloud looking like a dress trailing behind. Taking up the lower right portion of the image is a compact green bundle of clouds, with just a thin strip of black sky between the two nebulae.
Cepheus C & Cepheus B
This festive portrait of our Milky Way galaxy comes from ESA's Planck mission.
More
This oval image represents a view of the entire sky unfolded and laid out flat. Running horizontally across the middle of the oval is a bright line of white, which is light emitted by gas and dust in the plane of the Milky Way. Mottled red fills the oval with a few areas of yellow, especially along the plane of the Milky Way and extending above and below it. Over all of this, in the center, is a thick ring of blue.
A Milky Way 'Mixer' Amongst the Stars
NASA’s TESS captured these animated images of the northern sky over the course of one year.
More
A circular view of the northern sky with segments unfolded like a fan. The sky is full of stars, with a bright band of white light running nearly up and down just to the left of the center. This bright band is the plane of the Milky Way.
TESS's Northern Sky Vista
This image of supernova remnant RCW 86 combines data from NASA's Chandra, WISE, and Spitzer as well as ESA's XMM-Newton.
More
This starry background has red clouds scattered across the image. There’s a wide arc of blue, white and green at the bottom right of the image, and a thin arc running over the left and top of the image. Together these arcs almost form a circle.
Supernova Remnant RCW 86
This bone-chilling force will leave you shivering alone in terror!
More
This poster pictures an ominous, green bat that emerges from the cosmos, pushing objects like galaxies and stars further apart into the void of outer space.
Dark Energy – "Galaxy of Horrors" poster (English)
This image captured by NASA's SOFIA shows narrow structures channeling material into the Serpens South star cluster.
More
This view of a starry sky is bathed in red cloud-like structures. There is a bright grouping of stars just above and to the left of center in the image. These stars are bright white with large diffraction spikes, long lines like an asterisk over each star. The background changes to an electric green behind the concentration of stars. Lines in the image show where magnetic fields run. They run left to right over the main grouping of stars, but gradually change to be tilted from bottom left up to the right just below the grouping of stars.
Magnetic ‘Rivers' Feed Young Stars
The "Hand of God," a pulsar wind nebula, is imaged here by NASA's Chandra and NuSTAR missions.
More
A supernova remnant rises like an ethereal hand up the center of the image. The “wrist” appears in bright white while the finger-like structures are formed from a tangle of yellow strands of emission. This hand-shaped nebula intersects a spotty red oval with dots of light.
X-ray View of 'Hand of God'
This illustration explains the gravitational force, one of the four fundamental forces in the universe.
More
This infographic is done mostly in shades of blue. At the top left is the title: "Gravitational Force." Below that is a block of text that reads: "Gravity, the force that draws objects together, can be understood as bends and curves in the fabric of space-time. Anything with mass makes these dents, from the Earth and Moon to turtles and cats." Below the text, taking up most of the image, is an illustration of Earth and the Moon which is on top of an oval that contains concentric rings outlined in orange representing the fabric of space-time. Directly beneath Earth and the Moon are dips in space-time.
Gravitational Force
This map shows the oldest light in our universe, as detected by ESA's Planck mission.
More
This image shows an oval that represents the whole sky if you folded it out onto a flat piece of paper. The oval is dotted with many regions ranging from blue, green, yellow and red in color. While the image looks chaotic, the blue regions are nearly always surrounded by green. The yellow are embedded in the green, and red embedded in the yellow. These show temperature differences in the early universe, which ultimately lead us to see where matter clumped together to form the structures we see today.
Best Map Ever of the Universe
NASA's (PIPER) studies patterns of light in the universe’s baby picture, as shown in this infographic.
More
This infographic shows many factoids about the PIPER (Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer) balloon mission. At the top, there is part of an image of the cosmic microwave background with the text, “The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is heat left over from the big bang and is the oldest light we can see in the universe.” Just below that, near a circular, bright “explosion” is the text, “Scientists are studying the CMB for proof that the universe expanded rapidly immediately after the big bang.” Next is an image of two circles of yellow lines that look like 8-pointed pinwheels that would swirls in opposite directions with text, “This process, called inflation, should have created gravitational waves. If so, light from the CMB should contain a distinct twisting polarization pattern called B-mode.” There is a cut-out line drawing of the PIPER payload with the silhouette of a person standing next to it, showing that it is about two persons’ high. The text says, “PIPER is a microwave telescope flown on a high-altitude balloon. The instrument has twin telescopes in a hot-tub-sized container of liquid helium.” Next there is text with icicles below it that reads, “Liquid helium keeps the instrument at -452 degrees Fahrenheit (-269 Celsius).” Near a map of the United States with a telescope by Maryland and a lightbulb near California is the text, “The detectors on PIPER could spot a 60-watt incandescent light bulb in California from PIPER's base of operations at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.” A silhouette of a hippopotamus accompanies the text, “PIPER's total weight, including instrument, balloon and ballast, is about 8,000 pounds (3,600 kilograms), as much as a full-grown male hippopotamus.” An illustration of the fully inflated balloon appears with the text, “Width of fully inflated balloon: 430 feet (130 meters).” Underneath the balloon are three houses. The text nearby explains, “The balloon expands to approximately 40 million cubic feet (1.1 million cubic meters) when it reaches maximum altitude. It's made from polyethylene film comparable in thickness to ordinary plastic sandwich wrap.” A drawing of Australia, Texas and New Mexico is accompanied by the text, “Flights are planned from Ft. Sumner, New Mexico, Palestine, Texas and Alice Springs, Australia. Overnight flights from these three locations will allow PIPER to cover 85 percent of the sky.” And finally, a commercial airplane near the bottom has text, “PIPER's maximum altitude is about 120,000 feet (36,000 meters). That's more than three times the cruising altitude of a commercial airplane.”
PIPER Infographic
Hubble snapped this image of AG Carinae, one of the brightest stars in the Milky Way.
More
On a background dotted with small stars, AG Carinae appears as a giant eye in the sky. At the center is a bright white ball of light, and surrounding it is a ring of electric blue light and pale red light.
AG Carinae
This illustration explains the electromagnetic force, one of the four fundamental forces in the universe.
More
This infographic is done mostly in shades of blue. At the top left is the title: "Electromagnetic Force." Below that is a block of text that reads: "The electromagnetic force holds together objects with opposite electrical charges, like the proton and electron that make up one hydrogen atom." Below and to the right of the text is an illustration of a hydrogen atom. A blue circle representing a proton sits in the middle of a larger, transparent white circle. A yellow electron is orbiting the proton, illustrated by a streak of yellow trailing the proton across the top of the white circle.
Electromagnetic Force
This mosaic of NASA's Swift is created from images of astronomical objects captured by the satellite.
More
When taking this image as a whole, it looks like the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a telescope with a central cylindrical body and solar panels on either side. Upon closer inspection, though, the image is made from small individual images of different astronomical objects that were taken by the telescope.
Swift Millionth Image Mosaic
AU Microscopii se encuentra entre los sistemas planetarios más jóvenes jamás observados por los astrónomos, ¡y su estrella tiene unas brutales rabietas!
More
Ubicado a menos de 32 años luz de la Tierra, AU Microscopii se encuentra entre los sistemas planetarios más jóvenes jamás observados por los astrónomos, ¡y su estrella tiene unas brutales rabietas! ¿Has oído hablar de los "terribles dos años"? Pues AU Mic está en medio de sus terribles 22… ¡millones de años! Este sistema joven diabólico mantiene cautivo a su planeta, AU Mic b, dentro de un disco de polvo fantasmal y lo atormenta incesantemente con explosiones mortales de rayos X y otras radiaciones, frustrando cualquier posibilidad de vida ... ¡tal como la conocemos! ¡Cuidado! No hay escapatoria a la furia estelar de este sistema. Las llamaradas monstruosas de AU Mic te harán rogar por la oscuridad eterna.
Llamaradas de Furia – "Galaxy of Horrors" póster (En Español)
¡Ninguna nave espacial te protegerá de la cegadora destrucción de los demonios de rayos gamma!
More
Dos astronautas están sobre un asteroide, mirando un par de estrellas de neutrones, o los núcleos de estrellas colapsadas, chocar en la distancia. El resultado de la colisión son haces de luz brillantes y concentrados llamados rayos gamma. Los estallidos de rayos gamma evitan por poco impactar a los astronautas al ser emitidos desde la colisión.
Demonios de Rayos Gamma – "Galaxy of Horrors" póster (En Español)
In this photo, NICER’s X-ray concentrator optics are inspected under a black light for dust and foreign object debris.
More
Taking up the center of the photo is one of NICER’s X-ray concentrators which is formed from concentric cylindrical mirrors that look like a vinyl record with very deep grooves. On top of the concentrator is a metal structure with a hexagonal plate in the center that has thin bars extending from each of the six corners, looking like a spiderweb. This one concentrator is surrounded by five others, which are only partially seen. Along the top quarter of the image is a clear window that reflects rectangular light and has a series of small holds in a grid across the bottom edge. Some parts of the central concentrator and the one to the upper right of it are bathed in purple light.
Close-up View of NICER's X-Ray Optics
NASA’s Webb has peered into the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy.
More
A large pink, speckled galaxy resembling a wheel with a small, inner oval, with dusty blue in between on the right. Two smaller spiral galaxies about the same size are to the left, all against a black background.
Webb Captures the Cartwheel Galaxy
A real monster black hole is revealed in this image from NASA's NuSTAR and Hubble.
More
Three panels show the same region of sky in different wavelengths of light. On the left is a high-energy X-ray image, which has a bright white spot at the center with a halo of reds and yellows. The halo is brightest on the left side of the white central spot. On the right is the optical light image, which shows two cloudy ovals in shards of white, pale blue and red coming together. Where they meet the image is very bright. Also in the image are a few background spots of light on the black background. In the central image, the X-ray and optical images are shown together, so we see the bright spot where the galaxies come together surrounded by the red X-ray haze.
Tale of Two Black Holes
Composite image of the Swan Nebula with data from NASA's SOFIA, Herschel Space Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope.
More
Against a starry background sits a nebula that resembles the neck and head of a swan who is looking to the left. The cloudy nebula is a dark red on the edges that would be the right side of the swan’s neck and top of its head. This fades into a pale yellow on the left side of the swan’s neck and the bottom of the head and beak. Inside the crook of the neck there is a semi-transparent blue cloud. All of this is on a black, starry background.
Swan Nebula
The Webb telescope captured this composite image of Jupiter.
More
Jupiter dominates the black background of space. The planet is striated with swirling horizontal stripes of neon turquoise, periwinkle, light pink, and cream. The stripes interact and mix at their edges like cream in coffee. Along both of the poles, the planet glows in turquoise. Bright orange auroras glow just above the planet’s surface at both poles.
Webb Peeks Into Jupiter's Inner Life
This far-off blue planet may look like a friendly haven – but don’t be deceived! Weather here is deadly.
More
A poster done in the style of a vintage poster for a horror movie. Reading "Rains of Terror," it's death by a million cuts on this slasher planet. Jagged edges of glass can be seen battering a spacecraft on this alien world.
Rains of Terror – "Galaxy of Horrors" poster (English)
This chillingly haunted galaxy became a cosmic cemetery only a few billion years after the big bang!
More
A scarlet star looms behind the ruins of an exoplanet that resembles the shape of a skull. A red galaxy arm is visible in the background. It is apparent that this galaxy, named MACS 2129-1, has been decaying since it stopped producing stars only a few billion years after the big bang.
Galactic Graveyard – "Galaxy of Horrors" poster (English)
A brilliant tapestry of young stars flaring to life resembles a glittering fireworks display in this Hubble image.
More
This image shows a dense cluster of stars just offset to the right from center. The stars in the cluster are predominantly white tinted with red. Across the entire image are additional stars with both red-tinted and blue-tinted stars. There is a pillowy nebula taking up the left side and bottom of the image. Within the nebula, several pillars of dark, dense gas are being shaped by the energetic light and strong stellar winds from the brilliant cluster of thousands of stars.
Hubble Spots Fireworks in Westerlund 2

Explore the Universe

Related News

JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, which will devote about 32 days of telescope time to uncover and characterize faint, distant galaxies.
More
Early Universe Crackled With Bursts of Star Formation, Webb Shows
Early Universe Crackled With Bursts of Star Formation, Webb Shows
Astronomers have come up with some of their best evidence yet for the presence of an "intermediate-sized" black hole.
More
NASA's Hubble Hunts for Intermediate-Sized Black Hole Close to Home
NASA's Hubble Hunts for Intermediate-Sized Black Hole Close to Home
Four images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope of two galaxies, a nebula, and a star cluster.
More
NASA's Chandra, Webb Combine for Arresting Views
NASA's Chandra, Webb Combine for Arresting Views
Scores of baby stars shrouded by dust are revealed in this infrared image of the star-forming region NGC 2174, as seen by Spitzer Space Telescope.
More
Baby Stars in the Orion Constellation
Baby Stars in the Orion Constellation
The densely packed globular cluster NGC 6325 glistens in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
More
Hubble Peers into a Glistening Star Cluster
Hubble Peers into a Glistening Star Cluster
Astronomers have discovered an Earth-size exoplanet, or world beyond our solar system, that may be carpeted with volcanoes.
More
NASA's Spitzer, TESS Find Potentially Volcano-Covered Earth-Size World
NASA's Spitzer, TESS Find Potentially Volcano-Covered Earth-Size World
The jellyfish galaxy, JO175, appears to hang suspended in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
More
Hubble Views Striking Starry Tendrils
Hubble Views Striking Starry Tendrils
In 2017, astronomers reported discovering a shadow sweeping across the face of a vast pancake-shaped gas-and-dust disk surrounding the red dwarf star.
More
Hubble Follows Shadow Play Around Planet-Forming Disk
Hubble Follows Shadow Play Around Planet-Forming Disk
Star clusters are groups of stars that share an origin, forming at roughly the same time and location.
More
Star Clusters: Inside the Universe's Stellar Collections
Star Clusters: Inside the Universe's Stellar Collections
The old complaint is true: Dust gets everywhere. It’s found throughout the cosmos, at the bottom of everything.
More
Dust in the Stellar Wind: A Cosmological Primer
Dust in the Stellar Wind: A Cosmological Primer
A new study published online in the journal Nature documents the first observation of an aging star swallowing a planet.
More
Caught in the Act: Astronomers Detect a Star Devouring a Planet
Caught in the Act: Astronomers Detect a Star Devouring a Planet
A blazing red supergiant shining brilliantly in the night sky, Betelgeuse is a star that has captured attention for centuries.
More
What is Betelgeuse? Inside the Strange, Volatile Star
What is Betelgeuse? Inside the Strange, Volatile Star
Two neutron stars begin to merge in this illustration, blasting a jet of high-speed particles and producing a cloud of debris.
More
Neutron Stars Collide
Neutron Stars Collide
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope studied a rocky exoplanet known as GJ 486 b, searching for signs of an atmosphere.
More
Webb Finds Water Vapor, But From a Rocky Planet or Its Star?
Webb Finds Water Vapor, But From a Rocky Planet or Its Star?
A supercomputer simulation shows what kind of light gas would produce around supermassive black holes as they merge.
More
A Mesmerizing Model of Monster Black Holes
A Mesmerizing Model of Monster Black Holes
A menagerie of interesting astronomical finds are visible in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
More
Hubble Captures an Elusive Galaxy Cluster
Hubble Captures an Elusive Galaxy Cluster
Astronomers are celebrating NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's 33rd launch anniversary with an ethereal photo of a nearby star-forming region, NGC 1333.
More
Hubble Celebrates 33rd Anniversary With a Peek Into Nearby Star-Forming Region
Hubble Celebrates 33rd Anniversary With a Peek Into Nearby Star-Forming Region
Astronomers have identified a new threat to life on planets like Earth: intense X-rays from exploded stars can affect planets over 100 light-years away.
More
New Stellar Danger to Planets Identified by NASA's Chandra
New Stellar Danger to Planets Identified by NASA's Chandra
A subsystem for Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was recently delivered to Ball Aerospace and installed in the spacecraft’s Wide Field Instrument.
More
Goddard Team Builds, Tests Calibrator for NASA's Roman in Record Time
Goddard Team Builds, Tests Calibrator for NASA's Roman in Record Time
TESS’s cameras have mapped more than 93% of the sky, discovered 329 new worlds, and provided insights into a wide array of cosmic phenomena.
More
NASA's TESS Celebrates Fifth Year Scanning the Sky for New Worlds
NASA's TESS Celebrates Fifth Year Scanning the Sky for New Worlds
Shining like a brilliant beacon amidst a sea of galaxies, Arp 220 lights up the night sky in this view from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
More
Webb Captures the Spectacular Galactic Merger Arp 220
Webb Captures the Spectacular Galactic Merger Arp 220
A new image from James Webb Space Telescope shows the remains from an exploding star.
More
Webb Reveals Never-Before-Seen Details in Cassiopeia A
Webb Reveals Never-Before-Seen Details in Cassiopeia A
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the globular star cluster NGC 2419.
More
Hubble Spies a Multi-Generational Cluster
Hubble Spies a Multi-Generational Cluster
This supermassive black hole has left behind a never-before-seen 200,000-light-year-long "contrail" of newborn stars.
More
Hubble Sees Possible Runaway Black Hole Creating a Trail of Stars
Hubble Sees Possible Runaway Black Hole Creating a Trail of Stars
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has spotted gamma rays coming from thunderstorms.
More
What's Made in a Thunderstorm and Faster Than Lightning? Gamma Rays!
What's Made in a Thunderstorm and Faster Than Lightning? Gamma Rays!