Explanation: Blown by fast winds from a hot, massive star, this cosmic bubble is huge. Cataloged as Sharpless 308 it lies some 5,200 light-years away in the constellation Canis Major and covers over 2/3 degree on the sky (compared with 1/2 degree for the Full Moon). That corresponds to a diameter of 60 light-years at its estimated distance. The massive star itself, a Wolf-Rayet star, is the bright blue one near the center of the nebula. Wolf-Rayet stars have over 20 times the mass of the Sun and are thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova phase of massive star evolution. Fast winds from this Wolf-Rayet star create the bubble-shaped nebula as they sweep up slower moving material from an earlier phase of evolution. The windblown nebula has an age of about 70,000 years. Relatively faint emission captured in the expansive image is dominated by the glow of ionized oxygen atoms mapped to bluish hues.

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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Publikacii s klyuchevymi slovami: Wolf-Rayet star - stellar wind - zvezdy Vol'fa-Raie - zvezdnyi veter Publikacii so slovami: Wolf-Rayet star - stellar wind - zvezdy Vol'fa-Raie - zvezdnyi veter
Sm. takzhe: Sharpless 308: tumannost' Golova Del'fina Kol'cevaya tumannost' vokrug WR 134 Shlem Tora Kol'cevaya tumannost' WR 134 Sharpless 2-308: tumannost' Del'fin Zvezda Vol'fa-Raie WR 124 Sformirovannaya zvezdnym vetrom tumannost' RCW 58 Vse publikacii na tu zhe temu >>