Image Credit & Copyright: Bob and
Janice Fera (Fera Photography)
Explanation:
This helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages is popularly called
Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30
light-years across. In fact, the helmet is more like an interstellar bubble,
blown as a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center
sweeps through a surrounding molecular cloud. 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. Cataloged as NGC 2359, the nebula is located about 15,000
light-years away in the constellation Canis Major. The sharp image, made using
broadband and narrowband filters, captures striking details of the nebula's
filamentary structures. It shows off a blue-green color from strong emission
due to oxygen atoms in the glowing gas.
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