From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishnebulaneb‧u‧la /ˈnebjələ/ noun (plural nebulae /-liː/) [countable] 1 HAa mass of gas and dust among the stars, which often appears as a bright cloud in the sky at night2 HAa galaxy (=mass of stars) which appears as a bright cloud in the sky at night —nebular adjective
Examples from the Corpus
nebula• According to present-day ideas, a star begins its career by condensing out of a cloud of dust and gas known as a nebula.• As before, the star condenses out of a nebula, heats up, and begins to shine by the hydrogen-into-helium process.• The Eta Carinæ nebula is visible with the naked eye.• the Crab nebula• By sheer coincidence Kappa Crucis lies at the edge of the dark nebula known as the Coal Sack.• Explosions flared like novas inside a dust nebula.• A nearby nebula, orange and pink, was the lurid gaseous residue of an explosion.• Then, for a relative blink of about 1,000 years or less, the star becomes a planetary nebula.• The nebula is nearly 50 light-years in diameter, and may owe much of its illumination to Deneb.Origin nebula (1600-1700) Latin “mist, cloud” 