In 1764, Swiss astronomer Philippe Loys de Chéseaux discovered the beautiful Omega Nebula (M17) in Sagittarius. He described it as having “the shape of a ray, or of a comet tail. … Its sides are exactly parallel and quite well defined, much like its ends.”

The object’s nickname, however, didn’t come until John Herschel jotted down his description of it in 1833. Specifically, Herschel wrote that “its form is that of a Greek Omega with the left base-line turned upwards

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