Credit & Copyright: Josep Drudis,
Christian Sasse
Explanation:
Thor not only has
his own day
(Thursday), but a helmet in the heavens.
Popularly called Thor's Helmet,
NGC 2359
is a hat-shaped cosmic cloud with
wing-like
appendages.
Heroically sized even for a
Norse god,
Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across.
In fact, the cosmic head-covering is more like
an interstellar bubble, blown by a fast
wind from the bright, massive
star
near the bubble's center.
Known as a
Wolf-Rayet star, the central star is an extremely
hot giant thought to be in a brief,
pre-supernova stage of
evolution.
NGC 2359 is located about 15,000
light-years away toward the constellation of the
Great Overdog.
This sharp image
is a combination of deep images taken in light emitted by
hydrogen (red) and
oxygen
(blue).
The star in the center of Thor's Helmet is expected to
explode in a spectacular
supernova sometime within the next few thousand years.
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Публикации с ключевыми словами:
NGC 2359 - Wolf-Rayet star - звезды Вольфа-Райе - шлем Тора
Публикации со словами: NGC 2359 - Wolf-Rayet star - звезды Вольфа-Райе - шлем Тора | |
См. также:
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