Thursday, April 27, 2006

The Bubble

Credit & Copyright: Ken Crawford

Explanation: Blown by the wind from a star, this tantalizing, ghostly apparition is cataloged as NGC 7635, but known simply as The Bubble Nebula. Astronomer Ken Crawford's striking view combines a long exposure through a hydrogen alpha filter with color images to reveal the intricate details of this cosmic bubble and its environment. Although it looks delicate, the 10 light-year diameter bubble offers evidence of violent processes at work. Seen here above and left of the Bubble's center is a bright hot star embedded in telltale blue hues characteristic of dust reflected starlight. A fierce stellar wind and intense radiation from the star, which likely has a mass 10 to 20 times that of the Sun, has blasted out the structure of glowing gas against denser material in a surrounding molecular cloud. The intriguing Bubble Nebula lies a mere 11,000 light-years away toward the boastful constellation Cassiopeia.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi - beautiful images. When I was a child I was very interested in astronomy too but ultimately I did not go into it since my math skills weren't good enough. I remember when I was about 10, in '79 or '80, there was an ad at a local church about an astronomy lecture. I talked my parents into taking me. It was a disappointment. He was some sort of fundi/evangelical and his view of the universe was that it had not 'fallen' when mankind did. So therefor it was static and 'perfect'. (Shades of 'the music of the spheres' perhaps??) So I guess in his worldview stars were neither born nor died. Hm, I wonder what that makes supernovas then...God having an extra special party?!? Has anyone else ever run into this strange "Christian" view of astronomy? I never hear about it these days but they are to busy taking on biology and, to a lesser but related extent, geology (can you believe they sell a book IN the Grand Canyon NP all about how Noah's flood created the canyon? ACK!). Vent vent. Thanks for all the interested posts Stardust1954.

Stardust said...

Hm, I wonder what that makes supernovas then...God having an extra special party?!?

funny

(can you believe they sell a book IN the Grand Canyon NP all about how Noah's flood created the canyon? ACK!)

I saw that book...IDIOCY! This country is going backwards instead of forwards.