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Nebulae, being often visually interesting astronomical objects, frequently find themselves used as settings or backdrops for works of science fiction.
- Earthmen meet an alien race for the first time within the Crab Nebula in the science fiction story First Contact (Astounding, May 1945) by Murray Leinster.
- In the Doctor Who serial, Colony in Space, the Master reveals that the Crab Nebula's creation was the result of the Super Race of the planet Exarius (or Uxarius) testing their Doomsday Weapon, a device which could project anti-matter at super-luminal speed.
- In Battle of the Planets (the Americanized version of the Japanese television program, Gatchaman ), the Crab Nebula is the home of the planet Spectra, from which Zoltar and the Great Spirit are engaged in a war to defeat the Federation (a group of planets that includes Earth).
- In the Roleplaying Video game Mass Effect, the Crab Nebula can be traveled to, although in the game it has been renamed to the Hades Gamma Cluster.
The "Pillars of Creation" from the Eagle Nebula, Courtesy of
NASA/
ESA
- The main character from the animated TV series Widget hails from the Horsehead Nebula.
- In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the planet Magrathea is located in the Horsehead Nebula.
- In the 1978 Captain Harlock series, Harlock is led to believe a Mazone base is located within the Horsehead Nebula.
- Isaac Asimov's novel The Stars, Like Dust involves a search for a rebellion world, which the characters suppose to be located in the nebula. Asimov exemplifies the geocentrism of the nebula's name by having one character expound the false etymology that the nebula (which, from most other vantage points, looks nothing like a horse's profile) is named for a pioneer explorer named Horace Hedd. [Reference Needed]
- In the video game The Orion Conspiracy, the entire Horsehead Nebula is sucked into a black hole that apparently appears out of nowhere. This freak formation of a black hole is in the game dubbed the Orion Effect.
- In the Ship series, traveling the Horsehead Nebula is commonly referenced as the ultimate achievement for a Brainship team.
- In the Doctor Who episodes "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit", the Ood are from the Horsehead Nebula
- In the video game Mass Effect, the Horsehead Nebula is a navigable cluster, containing the Strenuus system (which houses the planets Yunthorl, Antitarra, Trelyn, Xawin, Thesalgon, and the orbiting MSV Majesty) and the Pax system (which hosts the planets Svarog, Noveria, Morana, and Veles).
- In the Malo Korrigan episode "Old Soldier", the Horsehead Nebula is the setting for a mechanical failure in the Starduke's engine.
- In the TV show Andromeda, the Witch Head Nebula (IC 2118) was the site of the last major stand between the Old Commonwealth and the Nietzschean Alliance. Nietzscheans tell a story of how the Angel of Death appears in the sky, and lit up the cosmos with fire. This effectively crushed both the remainder of the Old Commonwealth fleet, as well as crippled a good majority of the Nietzschean fleet - leaving the way for disorder and instability.
- Object M8: In the science fiction TV show Battlestar Galactica, the Lagoon Nebula is seen in the episode "Home, Part II", in the Tomb of Athena on Kobol and along with the presence of the twelve zodiac symbols, it serves as a rough reference point to the location of Earth. Since the nebula looks the same from Earth and from the Twelve Colonies, the two star systems lie in a relatively straight line with the nebula. The nebula was erroneously stated to be in the constellation Scorpio in the episode; a mistake acknowledged by the producers. William Adama refers to the Nebula as "M8", its Messier catalog number.
- In the movie Treasure Planet, the main characters open a portal to distant regions of space. The first one is said to be the Lagoon Nebula, and it is also said to be "halfway across the galaxy."
- The Trifid nebula is frequently seen in Beast Wars in space scenes throughout the series
- The Veil Nebula was the site of the last "unstable planet" visited by the spaceship Dark Star in the film of the same name.
