NASA Honors Prince with Stunning Image of Purple Nebula

With the recent passing of international music icon Prince, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration pays tribute to one of the greatest artists of all time with a stunning image of a purple nebula, inspired by his hit song "Purple Rain."

The image posted by NASA on their Twitter account is a composite view of the Crab Nebula from the combined imagery of European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory and NASA's very own Hubble Space Telescope.

According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the image is the combination of Hubble's view of the nebula at visible wavelengths, obtained using three different filters sensitive to the emission from oxygen and sulphur ions and Herschel's far-infrared image reveals the emission from dust in the nebula and is shown here in red.

CBS News reported that the image of Crab Nebula is suiting tribute for Prince. The Crab Nebula is a remnant of a supernova explosion of a massive star. This kind of stars burns incredibly bright and die young, just like Prince who light up the world of music and passed away at 57.

The tweet of NASA honoring Prince has reached over 50,000 retweets and was like by over 54,000 users.

Prince, or Prince Rogers Nelson, was born on June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis. He released his hit song "Purple Rain" with his back-up band "The Revolution" in 1984, which also served as the soundtrack of his first film debut of the same name.

Despite his popularity in the music industry, Prince has also garnered lots of fans because of his reluctant activism on sexual and racial stereotyping, love for animals and veganism.

Prince has received numerous awards for his contributions in the industry including seven Grammy Awards, one Golden Globe Award and one Academy Award. In 2004, Prince was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was also ranked by Rolling Stone as the 27^th in the list of the Top 100 Greatest Artist of All Time.