Thursday, March 06, 2008

Kind of looks like FSM and his Noodly Appendages

click in image to enlarge
Vela Supernova Remnant
Credit & Copyright: Robert Gendler

Explanation: The plane of our Milky Way Galaxy runs through this complex and beautiful skyscape. At the northwestern edge of the constellation Vela (the Sails) the 16 degree wide, 30 frame mosaic is centered on the glowing filaments of the Vela Supernova Remnant, the expanding debris cloud from the death explosion of a massive star. Light from the supernova explosion that created the Vela remnant reached Earth about 11,000 years ago. In addition to the shocked filaments of glowing gas, the cosmic catastrophe also left behind an incredibly dense, rotating stellar core, the Vela Pulsar. Some 800 light-years distant, the Vela remnant is likely embedded in a larger and older supernova remnant, the Gum Nebula. The broad mosaic includes other identified emission and reflection nebulae, star clusters, and the remarkable Pencil Nebula.

4 comments:

tina FCD said...

Ooo, pretty! Post it on their website.

Stardust said...

That's a great idea! I will email them the link to NASA's APOD pic.

Spirula said...

You're gonna be turned into over-cooked vermicelli for posting his graven image!

Idolator!

CyberKitten said...

stardust said: Kind of looks like FSM and his Noodly Appendages

[rotflmao]