People were left mesmerized by the colourful pictures.
Holi, known as the festival of colours, is celebrated with full enthusiasm across India. This time, the European Space Agency (ESA) participated in the celebration and shared pictures of two colourful nebulae captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The agency took to Instagram and said, "Cosmic colours for your Holi and Purim parties. We are celebrating the Hindu festival of colours and the Jewish feast of lots with these colourful Hubble captures of two nebulae."
They further described the images. The ESA said that the celestial cloudscape shows the vibrant region encircling the Herbig-Haro object HH 505 in the first two photos. Herbig-Haro objects, which are bright regions surrounding newborn stars, are produced as stellar winds or jets of gas ejected by newborn stars crash with nearby gas and dust at high speeds.
"In the case of HH 505, these outflows originate from the star IX Ori, which lies on the outskirts of the Orion Nebula around 1000 light-years from Earth," the agency said in a post.
Discussing the next set of pictures, the space agency said that "NGC 6530 is a collection of several thousand stars lying around 4350 light-years from Earth". They said, "A portion of the open cluster NGC 6530 appears as a roiling wall of smoke studded with stars in this image. NGC 6530 is a collection of several thousand stars lying around 4350 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. The cluster is set within the larger Lagoon Nebula, a gigantic interstellar cloud of gas and dust. It is the nebula that gives this image its distinctly smokey appearance."
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Since being shared, the post has amassed over 14,000 likes and several comments.
"Amazing," said a user.
"Wow," remarked another person.
A third person commented, "It's looks like a painting ! .. Happy Holi and purim, everyone!"
"I want to dive into these beautiful colors," added another person.