Astronomy Picture of the Day
Posted By admin On November 13, 2011 @ 7:29 pm In Photo Essays | Comments Disabled
[1]Image Credit: NASA [2], ESA [3], and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team [4]
Explanation: Few butterflies have a wingspan this big. The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth’s night sky are often named [5] for flowers [6] or insects [7], and NGC 6302 [8] is no exception. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the central star of this particular planetary [9] nebula is exceptionally hot though — shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. This dramatically detailed close-up [10] of the dying star’s nebula was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope soon after it was upgraded [11] in 2009. Cutting across a bright cavity of ionized gas, the dust torus [12] surrounding the central star is near the center of this view, almost edge-on to the line-of-sight. Molecular hydrogen has been detected [13] in the hot star’s dusty cosmic shroud.NGC 6302 [14] lies about 4,000 light-years away in the arachnologically [15] correct constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius [16]).
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URL to article: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2011/11/13/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-88/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/butterfly2_hst_3017.jpg
[2] NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/
[3] ESA: http://www.spacetelescope.org/
[4] Hubble SM4 ERO Team: http://hubblesite.org/servicing_mission_4/
[5] named: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010205.html
[6] flowers: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap011214.html
[7] insects: http://insects.org/
[8] NGC 6302: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980602.html
[9] planetary: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040207.html
[10] dramatically detailed close-up: http://internal.hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/25/image/b/
[11] upgraded: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/multimedia/ero/index.html
[12] dust torus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rPb3v6YF7Y
[13] has been detected: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005hris.conf..423M
[14] NGC 6302: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008MNRAS.385..269M
[15] arachnologically: http://www.arachnology.be/Arachnology.html
[16] Scorpius: http://hawastsoc.org/deepsky/sco/index.html
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