NASA is jumping on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens bandwagon by releasing a new image of a cosmic, double-bladed "lightsaber" captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
It's not the twin-bladed lightsaber once wielded by Darth Maul in the Star Wars universe, of course, but rather an extremely energetic young star blasting out jets of superheated plasma from the clouds of dust and gas in the nebula where it was born, NASA explains.
Still, the agency was happy to include a Star Wars reference in describing what the Hubble image shows.
"In the center of the image, partially obscured by a dark, Jedi-like cloak of dust, a newborn star shoots twin jets out into space as a sort of birth announcement to the universe," NASA says on its website.
Gas and dust being consumed by the young star hidden from view in an area called the Orion B molecular cloud complex is superheated, then shot out in opposite directions along the star's rotation axis, creating the double "blades" of a Sith Lord's lightsaber, NASA scientists explain.
Hubble scientists are quick to admit being Star Wars fans.
"Science fiction has been an inspiration to generations of scientists and engineers, and the film series Star Wars is no exception," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator in the NASA Science Mission directorate. "There is no stronger case for the motivational power of real science than the discoveries that come from the Hubble Space Telescope as it unravels the mysteries of the universe."
The cosmic phenomenon is not in a galaxy far, far away, NASA notes; it's inside our home Milky Way galaxy, around 1,350 light years from us.
The Hubble image was captured at infrared wavelengths, allowing us to see the star's jets that would otherwise be hidden from us, the agency says.
Not to be outdone in plugging into the Star Wars connection, the European Space Agency, which cooperates with NASA on the Hubble project, weighed in with its own description of the impressive image.
"The Force is strong with these twin jets; their effect on their environment demonstrates the true power of the Dark Side with a blast stronger than one from a fully armed and operational Death Star battle station."
