spiral nebula

American  

noun

Astronomy.

1. (formerly) a spiral galaxy.

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Example Sentences

Shapley argued that the spiral nebulae were small and in the Milky Way, while Curtis took a more radical position that they were independent galaxies, extremely large and distant.

From Salon

Famed astronomer Edwin Hubble used this very telescope to solve the long-debated spiral nebulae question by observing other galaxies to be separate from our own.

From Los Angeles Times

And I’m thinking of the images of vaudevillian skeletons, and a weeping soldier, and spiral nebulae that have preoccupied the artist of late.

From New York Times

Later that year, Payne won the inaugural Annie Jump Cannon Prize for contributions to astronomy, receiving $50 and a gold pin, designed by Cannon, in the form of a spiral nebula.

From Nature

But Slipher was a detail-oriented, methodical astronomer, who developed a reliable means of recording the spectra of planets, stars…and then most crucially of the spiral nebulae.

From Forbes