What you’re looking at there is one of those fantastic picture that the Hubble keeps bringing back in an absolute superabundance, this one of the Iris Nebula.  The Iris Nebula, relative to us, is really, really far.  Basically, if you stood on earth and shot a flashlight beam in the direction of the Iris Nebula, you’d have to hold that flashlight there for a really long time.

Fourteen hundred years, long time.

Anyway, the strangest thing about the Iris Nebula is that it appears red, and it’s too small a nebula to generate light.  But it’s reflecting light from a star from what appears to be a previously unknown compound.  No  one knows just what that compound IS yet, but they’re trying to figure it out.

And until then, we’ll just have to look at this awesome picture taken by one of the greatest telescopes ever, the Hubble.

Related posts:

1. Pictures From Space–The Hubble Array Shots
2. Pictures From Space–The Horsehead Nebula
3. What Pictures Would You Like Hubble to Take?
4. The Hubble Takes HD Pictures of Jupiter’s Moons
5. Pictures From Space–The Pillars of Creation