The Pencil Nebula in Red and Blue
This shock wave plows through interstellar space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Near the top and moving up in this sharply detailed color composite, thin, bright, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a cosmic sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge-on. Cataloged as NGC 2736, its elongated appearance suggests its popular name, the Pencil Nebula.
The Pencil Nebula is about 5 light-years long and 800 light-years away, but represents only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant. The 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 shock wave was moving at millions of kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up surrounding interstellar material. In the featured narrow-band, wide field image, red and blue colors track the characteristic glow of ionized hydrogen and oxygen atoms, respectively.
Image & info via APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright: José Joaquín Perez
#universe #space #science #NASA #nebula
I've missed your space posts.
ReplyDeleteJohn Bump
ReplyDeleteI guess, I needed some time away from G+.
Well, welcome back. I too appreciate your posts.
ReplyDeleteMichael D Kendall
ReplyDeleteMerci.
Nice to see you back, Corina Marinescu. Absence from G+ takes time to feel salient, and yours did so to me just yesterday... made me ponder with some regret the likeliness we'd not see you again... like so many who've already disappeared from the venue.
ReplyDeleteBoris Borcic
ReplyDeleteNice to see you too.
Good to see you back, missed you and you insights and curiosities. Hope all well with you
ReplyDeleteSam Collett thanks.
ReplyDeleteAll good here. Hope all is good with you as well.
Great to have you back Corina Marinescu - as so many, I too have missed your edifying posts.
ReplyDeleteAbraham Matthews
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Simply lovely the mystery.
ReplyDeleteCorina Marinescu Oh, you 'Spaced Out' did you, for a while? Always good to take a break, a moment, or a vacation and step back - put things in perspective.
ReplyDeleteYay, you're back! May the elucidation commence!
ReplyDeleteI love your posts, glad to see you back in my feed 😂
ReplyDeleteI found myself wondering about the NGC designation, which stands for New General Catalogue — a catalogue of deep-field sky objects. It turns out that it has a lineage that's over 200 years old.
ReplyDeleteFirst there was the CN (Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars), published in 1786 by William Herschel and his sister Caroline Herschel.
His son, John Herschel, later expanded this into the General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (GC).
Finally, in 1888, John Louis Emil Dreyer developed the GC into the New General Catalogue, or NGC, used by astronomers to this day.
Bodhipaksa
ReplyDeleteInteresting info. Thanks.
Hudson Ansley
ReplyDeleteMerci.
Henry Green ...or to get a tan.
ReplyDeleteI just realized that my phone had autocorrected “deep-field sky object” to “deep-fried sky objects.” My phone knows me all too well!
ReplyDeleteBodhipaksa I just thought it was an inside (or outside) joke!
ReplyDelete