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Taking a Look at the Carina Nebula

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The Carina Nebula Since the beginning of time, man has looked up to the stars and reveled in its beauty, believing that only gods can be responsible for creating such a beautiful night time sky. For centuries humans have grappled with questions relating to the sky and our place as humans in the cosmos. In today’s modern age, it seems that most of us (myself included) forget to look up and appreciate nature’s mysterious beauty. For this reason, I chose the most beautiful and mysterious place in the sky to do my research on, the Carina Nebula. The Carina Nebula takes up a vast amount of space and is home to thousands of stars that are both young and old that can offer new information to us about stars. This nebula not only holds secrets that still puzzle astronomers to this day, but also offers us answers that we thought we might have never gotten. The first thing you might be wondering is, what exactly is a nebula? Well according to Franknoi, a nebula is “A cloud of interstellar gas and dust that can be seen to glow with visible light or invisible light” (Franknoi 532). The Carina Nebula was formed approximately 3 million years ago in the Southern region of the Milky Way in the Carina constellation. It is located roughly 7,500 light years away from earth, which is relatively close in special terms, and even bright enough to be seen from south of the earth’s equator. It was discovered by French astronomer, Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, in 1751 from the Cape of Good Hope in

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