The Seagull Nebula © Gianni Lacroce

The Milky Way arching over Lake Mungo, Australia // John Rutter

Voyager 2: Rings of Neptune (August 1989)

Corona Australis

Nebula is mostly hydrogen gas, and a small amount of metals (elements above helium) which tend to be covered as "Dust", but it's the dust that best reflect the light of the stars, and as the largest and most energetic of them are blue, you get these areas of blue haze. Hydrogen more often glows red when bombarded by UV light, the two colours together quite magical.

The area has a number of NGC objects 6726,6727,6729 but born of the same huge molecular cloud.

Our Milky Way has many such areas full of star birth, and as blue giants are not long lived, supernova and star death too.

[...] while compartmentalization and replication are important, they are aspects of what life is and does, but they do not address the why of life. The why of life is metabolism. By completing the circuit of life, biology harnesses energy from its environment. Technically speaking, this means that biology actually helps the universe cool faster; it increases the entropy of the universe. This is why the universe needs life.

Alien Oceans by Kevin Peter Hand

Cosmic Delights and Distant Discoveries Unfold in ‘Astronomy Photographer of the Year 15’

Cosmic Dance of Spiral Galaxies: Arp 238

NGC 7380, The Wizard

Star Trails in Western Australia by Trevor Dobson