What is nebulae?

A nebula is like a giant cosmic jelly that stars are born from.

Imagine you're playing with a big bucket full of water and glitter. When you shake it up, the glitter spreads out in all directions, some pieces float close together, others drift far apart. A nebula is kind of like that bucket, but instead of water and glitter, it has gas and tiny bits of dust floating around in space.

A nebula can be the birthplace of stars. Just like how you might mix ingredients together to make cookies, clouds of gas and dust in a nebula come together under gravity’s gentle pull, and poof! A new star is born.

Sometimes these giant cosmic jellies are lit up by the bright light of nearby stars, making them look colorful and sparkly from far away. You might see them as pink, blue, or purple clouds in pictures of space, like a glittery sky that stretches across the universe.