Astronomy Picture of the Day

Thor's Emerald Helmet


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#105313 by @ 18.01.2008 00:00 - nach oben -
Thor's Emerald Helmet


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 actually 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
captures striking details of the
nebula's filamentary structures and also
records an almost emerald color from strong emission
due to oxygen atoms in the glowing gas.




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