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Credit & Copyright: Y. Naze, G. Rauw, J. Manfroid, J. Vreux
(Univ. Liege),
Y. Chu (Univ. Illinois),
ESO
Explanation:
How could two young stars power these colorful interstellar gas clouds?
Although hidden by thick
dust, the stars spew forceful
ions and energetic
radiation that cause the clouds to fragment and light up.
The above composite color image from the
European Southern Observatory's
Melipal
VLT telescope resolves details in the
nebula complex known as BAT99-49, with emission from
helium atoms in blue hues,
oxygen atoms in green, and
hydrogen atoms in red.
Located in the
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the largest
satellite galaxy to our own
Milky Way Galaxy, one of the stars in the central
binary is an enigmatic
Wolf-Rayet star
while the other is a massive
O star.
Wolf-Rayet stars have some of the
hottest surfaces in the universe, while O stars are the most
massive and energetic of normal main sequence stars.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Wolf-Rayet star - binary star
Publications with words: Wolf-Rayet star - binary star
See also: