This Winter Snow Angel Is Out Of This World! The Hubble Space Telescope Captured This Festive Image Of

This winter snow angel is out of this world! The Hubble Space Telescope captured this festive image of the bipolar star-forming region Sharpless 2-106. A massive, young star, IRS 4 is responsible for the furious star birth we see in this nebula. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the “wings” of the celestial angel.

A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an hourglass shape. Hubble's sharp resolution reveals ripples and ridges in the gas as it interacts with the cooler interstellar medium.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

ALT TEXT: Looking somewhat like an angel with outstretched wings, this blue-and-orange star-forming region is set against a black background punctuated by bright stars of various sizes. Some of the stars are white, while others are orange, and one in the bottom-right corner is bright red. Many of these stars have starburst-like diffraction spikes. The “angel’s” long wings are cavities outlined in a feathery pattern of blue and white. Its flowing, “dress” is a triangular, orange area of denser, dustier gas that trails off into the blackness of space. At its waist is a bright white-and-orange, centrally located star.