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.
WR124: Stellar Fireball
Explanation: Some stars explode in slow motion. Rare, massive Wolf-Rayet stars are so tumultuous and hot they are disintegrating right before our telescopes. Glowing gas globs each over 30 times more massive than the Earth are being expelled by a violent stellar wind . Wolf-Rayet star WR124, visible near the image center, is thus creating the surrounding nebula known as M1-67 . Why this star has been slowly blowing itself apart over the past 10,000 years remains unclear. WR124 is 15,000 light-years away towards the constellation of Sagitta .
| Date | November 9, 1998 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit: Y. Grosdidier (U. Montreal) et al., WFPC2, HST, NASA |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |