NASA shares image of ‘monster’ nebula that looks like Godzilla

NASA has released a photo of a colorful nebula that resembles famous movie monster Godzilla.

The image was captured by NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope. The nebula, a cloud of gas and dust in space, is located in the constellation Sagittarius, along the plane of the Milky Way, which was part of Spitzer’s GLIMPSE Survey (Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire).

“Stars in the upper right (where this cosmic Godzilla’s eyes and snout would be) are an unknown distance from Earth but within our galaxy,” NASA says. “Located about 7,800 light-years from Earth, the bright region in the lower left (Godzilla’s right hand) is known as W33”.

NASA

The image was processed by the California Institute of Technology, which manages NASA’s Jet Propulsion laboratory.

“I wasn’t looking for monsters. I just happened to glance at a region of sky that I’ve browsed many times before, but I’d never zoomed in on,” explained astronomer Roburt Hurt. “Sometimes if you just crop an area differently, it brings out something that you didn’t see before. It was the eyes and mouth that roared ‘Godzilla’ to me.”

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NASA explained that the colours blue, cyan, green, and red are used to represent different wavelengths of infrared light: “Blue and cyan represent wavelengths primarily emitted by stars; dust and organic molecules called hydrocarbons appear green; and warm dust that’s been heated by stars or supernovae (exploding stars) appears red.”

The nebula is almost entirely obscured by dust clouds when viewed in visible light. Infared light (wavelengths longer than what our eyes can perceive) can penetrate the clouds, revealing hidden regions like ‘Godzilla’.