Posts Tagged ‘Scorpius’
Anthill
Image Credit: NASA, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: R. Sahai (Jet Propulsion Lab) and B. Balick (University of Washington)
The Hubble Space Telescope shows us another example of how our Sun might die in 5 billion years. The “Ant Nebula, ” or Menzel 3, shows two glowing bubbles coming out from the dying star. Astronomers are most curious about the equal shape of the bubble on either side of the star. This symmetry offers scientists a chance to come up with many different ideas on the cause.
Cotton Candy Butterfly
Credit: Sun Kwok and Kate Su (University of Calgary), Bruce Hrivnak (Valparaiso University), and NASA
The moment captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope of the Cotton Candy Nebula is a fleeting one. The Cotton Candy Nebula shows the beginning stages of the transformation from red giant to planetary nebula. Astronomers call this stage a proto-planetary nebula and it lasts only about 1,000 years.
Cat’s Paw
Credit: ESO
Resembling a cat’s paw from Earth, this glowing cloud of hydrogen gas spans 50 light-years. The Cat’s Paw Nebula, or NGC 6334, is a vast, active stellar nursery. It is also home to some of the most massive stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. These stars are only a few million years old; just younglings in the universe. Our Sun, by comparison, is 4.5 billion years old and is considered middle-aged. Massive stars form in this cloud because of the abundance of gas and dust; both ingredients for making baby stars. The massive stars will only live a short time however. In just tens of millions of years, these stars will explode in supernovae. These blasts will spread gas far and wide. The shockwaves will squeeze gas and dust together creating areas for new stars to form.
Space Amoeba
ESO/APEX/DSS2/ SuperCosmos/ Deharveng(LAM)/ Zavagno(LAM)
An expanding cloud of ionizing gas resembles a space amoeba. What stories do you see playing out in this nebula?
Ornaments
Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. MaÃz Apellániz (Instituto de AstrofÃsica de AndalucÃa, Spain)
Like a hollowed out ornament, NGC 6357 glows red in the constellation Scorpius. Or, maybe, what I see in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image is a Christmas tree reaching for the stars of the open star cluster Pismis 24.
Welcome
The ancient peoples saw pictures in the sky. From those patterns in the heavens, ancient storytellers created legends about heroes, maidens, dragons, bears, centaurs, dogs and mythical creatures…Read More
Connect
By The Riviera Times
By CritterKeeper
By Sarah Q. Brett