Stars

A forming star in the Sharpless 2-106 nebula (Image NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))

In February 2011 the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 captured the extraordinary show of a star that is still forming illuminating the surrounding cloud of hydrogen and now NASA and ESA have published some stunning images of it. This star is part of a nebula known as Sharpless 2-106 (Sh2-106, or abbreviated as S106) because it’s one of those cataloged by astronomer Stewart Sharpless in the ’50s.

Artistic concept of the Kepler16 binary system (image NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)

Kepler-16b, this is the name of this planet distant about two hundred light years from Earth and discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, is cold and at least partially gaseous, more or less the size of Saturn. What it has in common with Tatooine is the fact that it orbits two stars so there are astronomers who began to call it informally with that name.