Astronomy Picture of the Day
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2014 July 1
Wolf-Rayet Star 124: Stellar Wind Machine
Image Credit:
Hubble Legacy Archive,
NASA,
ESA -
Processing &
Licence:
Judy Schmidt
Explanation:
Some stars explode in slow motion.
Rare, massive
Wolf-Rayet stars
are so tumultuous and hot that they slowly disintegrating right before our telescopes.
Glowing gas globs each typically over 30 times more massive than the Earth are being expelled by violent
stellar winds.
Wolf-Rayet star WR 124, visible near the
above image center spanning six
light years across,
is thus creating the surrounding nebula known as
M1-67.
Details of why this star has been slowly blowing itself
apart over the past 20,000 years remains a topic of research.
WR 124 lies 15,000 light-years away towards the
constellation of
Sagitta.
The fate of any given
Wolf-Rayet star
likely depends on how massive it is,
but many are thought to end their lives with spectacular explosions such as
supernovas or
gamma-ray bursts.
Tomorrow's picture: umbrellas in space
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Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(
MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (
UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman
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