What is a nebula galaxy?

A nebula is an enormous cloud of dust and gas occupying the space between stars and acting as a nursery for new stars. The roots of the word come from Latin nebula, which means a “mist, vapor, fog, smoke, exhalation.” Nebulae are made up of dust, basic elements such as hydrogen and other ionized gases.

Why are galaxies nebulae?

Named after the Latin word for “cloud”, nebulae are not only massive clouds of dust, hydrogen and helium gas, and plasma; they are also often “stellar nurseries” – i.e. the place where stars are born. And for centuries, distant galaxies were often mistaken for these massive clouds.

Do nebulae create planets?

A planetary nebula is an expanding, glowing shell of hot gas (plasma) that is cast off towards the end of a low-mass star’s life. Despite the name, they have nothing to do with planets, and were so named because early astronomers thought they looked a bit like planets through a small telescope.

What are galaxies and nebulae What are they made up of?

This definition, adopted at a time when very distant objects could not be resolved into great detail, unfortunately includes two unrelated classes of objects: the extragalactic nebulae, now called galaxies, which are enormous collections of stars and gas, and the galactic nebulae, which are composed of the interstellar …

How is a nebula formed in space?

The Short Answer: A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas in space. Some nebulae (more than one nebula) come from the gas and dust thrown out by the explosion of a dying star, such as a supernova. Other nebulae are regions where new stars are beginning to form.

Are there any nebulas in our galaxy?

Right now, we know of about 3,000 planetary nebulae in our galaxy, the Milky Way, out of roughly 200 billion stars. Most of them are near the center of our galaxy. They come in many shapes, but most are spherical, elliptical, or bipolar. The spherical ones are usually produced by older stars, like our sun.

How many nebulae are there in the Milky Way galaxy?

There are believed to be about 20,000 objects called planetary nebulae in the Milky Way Galaxy, each representing gas expelled relatively recently from a central star very late in its evolution. Because of the obscuration of dust in the Galaxy, only about 1,800 planetary nebulae have been cataloged.

Are all nebulae in the Milky Way?

Right now, we know of about 3,000 planetary nebulae in our galaxy, the Milky Way, out of roughly 200 billion stars. Most of them are near the center of our galaxy. They come in many shapes, but most are spherical, elliptical, or bipolar.

How does a nebula become a star?

How do stars form in a nebula? Nebulae are made of dust and gases—mostly hydrogen and helium. Eventually, the clump of dust and gas gets so big that it collapses from its own gravity. The collapse causes the material at the center of the cloud to heat up-and this hot core is the beginning of a star.