APOD
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.
NGC 2359: Thor's Helmet
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 Canis Major . The remarkably detailed image is a mixed cocktail of data from broadband and narrowband filters that captures natural looking stars and the glow of the nebula's filamentary structures. It highlights a blue-green color from strong emission due to oxygen atoms in the glowing gas.
| Date | February 16, 2019 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Image Credit & Copyright: Ignacio Diaz Bobillo |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |