Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2020 June 12

                           NGC 2359: Thor's Helmet
                    Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Pugh

   Explanation: NGC 2359 is a helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like
   appendages popularly called Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a
   Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the
   helmet is more like an interstellar bubble, blown as a fast wind from
   the bright, massive star near the bubble's center inflates a region
   within the surrounding molecular cloud. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the
   central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief,
   pre-supernova stage of evolution. NGC 2359 is located about 15,000
   light-years away in the constellation of the Great Overdog. The
   remarkably sharp image is a mixed cocktail of data from broadband and
   narrowband filters using three different telescopes. It captures
   natural looking stars and the details of the nebula's filamentary
   structures. The predominant bluish hue is strong emission from doubly
   ionized oxygen atoms in the glowing gas.

                      Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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