Hubble Sees Dazzling Dust in the Iris Nebula

NGC 7023. Credit: NASA and ESA

Another gorgeous image from Hubble! This close-up of NGC 7023, or the Iris Nebula, shows an area filled with cosmic dust. Illuminated from above by the nearby star HD 200775, the dust resembles pink cotton candy, accentuated with diamond-like stars. The "cotton candy" is actually made up of tiny particles of solid matter, with sizes from ten to a hundred times smaller than those of the dust grains we find on Earth, and the "diamonds" are both background and foreground stars.
(...)
Read the rest of Hubble Sees Dazzling Dust in the Iris Nebula (109 words)