NGC 6357 is a diffuse nebula near NGC 6334 in the constellation Scorpius. This nebula was given the name War and Peace Nebula by the Midcourse Space Experiment scientists because of its appearance. They said that in infrared images the bright, western part resembles a dove, while the eastern part looks like a skull. The nebula contains many proto-stars shielded by dark disks of gas, and young stars wrapped in expanding “cocoons”.
This image was made using the following Hubble datasets:
hst_09091_21_wfpc2_f502n_wf
hst_09091_21_wfpc2_f656n_wf
hst_09091_21_wfpc2_f673n_wf
hst_09091_21_wfpc2_f814w_wf
HST_9857_05_ACS_WFC_F660N