The Lagoon Nebula is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. It is classified as an emission nebula and as an H II region. Discovered by Giovanni Battista Hodierna before 1654, it is one of only two star-forming nebulae faintly visible to the naked eye from mid-northern latitudes. While appearing pink in long-exposure photographs, it typically appears gray when viewed through binoculars or telescopes due to the human eye's limited color sensitivity in low-light conditions. In the foreground is the open cluster NGC 6530.
The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile has captured this richly detailed new image of the Lagoon Nebula. This giant cloud of gas and dust is creating intensely bright young stars, and is home to young stellar clusters. This image is a tiny part of just one of eleven public surveys of the sky now in progress using ESO telescopes. Together these are providing a vast legacy of publicly available data for the global astronomical community.
Author: European Southern Observatory / VLT Survey Telescope team
