Credit & Copyright: Helge Buesing
Explanation:
This supernova shock wave plows through interstellar space
at over 500,000 kilometers per hour.
Centered and moving upward in the
sharply detailed color composite
its thin, bright, braided filaments are actually long ripples
in a cosmic sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge-on.
Discovered in the 1840s by
Sir
John Herschel,
the narrow-looking nebula
is sometimes known as Herschel's Ray.
Cataloged
as NGC 2736,
its pointed appearance suggests its modern popular name, the Pencil Nebula.
The Pencil Nebula
is about 800 light-years away.
Nearly 5 light-years long it represents only a small part of the
Vela supernova remnant though.
The enormous Vela remnant itself
is around 100 light-years in diameter, the expanding
debris cloud of
a star
that was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago.
Initially, the section of the
shock wave seen as the Pencil nebula was moving
at millions of kilometers
per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up
surrounding interstellar material.
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A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
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Publikacii s klyuchevymi slovami:
tumannost' Karandash - ostatok Sverhnovoi - supernova remnant
Publikacii so slovami: tumannost' Karandash - ostatok Sverhnovoi - supernova remnant | |
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