Explanation:
The Owl Nebula is perched in the sky about 2,600 light-years away
toward the bottom of the
Big Dipper's bowl.
Also
cataloged as M97,
the 97th object in Messier's well-known
list, its round shape along with the placement of
two large, dark "eyes" do suggest the face of a
staring owl.
One of the fainter objects in
Messier's catalog,
the Owl Nebula is a
planetary nebula,
the glowing gaseous
envelope shed by
a dying sun-like star as it runs out of
nuclear fuel.
In fact, the Owl Nebula offers an example of the fate of our
Sun as it runs out of fuel in another 5 billion years.
As we see it, the nebula spans over 2 light-years making it
roughly 2,000 times the size of Solar System.
Beautiful to look at,
this
color image shows impressive details within the cosmic owl.
The composite includes images made through
narrow-band filters for a total of 24 hours
of exposure time.
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