Your Canon can't capture this
Posted 10.20.2011 at 12:38 pm
5 Comments
A Cosmic Bubble is Blown
Larry Van Vleet via SPACE
Today in pretty space pics: a beautiful cosmic bubble. Imaged by California-based skywatcher Larry Van Vleet, the pic shows a giant bubble of glowing gas being blown in the nebula NGC 7635, also known as the Bubble Nebula.
Located some 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia, the bubble is the product of seriously strong stellar winds and radiation from a nearby star, one that is likely 10 or 20 times more massive than our sun. Essentially the atoms in the gas cloud are energized by all that UV radiation, causing them to glow and themselves emit radiation as they fall back into lower energy states.
The result is a the soft pink glow you see here. For perspective: The bubble itself is some six light-years across. That’s big. The star fueling the bubble is able to do so across such vast spans because it is nearing supernova--which means it’s likely hotter than about 45,000 degrees (and could be twice that hot) and is absolutely pouring radiation into the surrounding molecular cloud. More details on how this image was captured at SPACE.
[SPACE]
5 Comments
To comment, please Login.
Popular Tags
Technology
140 years of Popular Science at your fingertips.
Innovation Challenges
Popular Science+ For iPad
Each issue has been completely reimagined for your iPad. See our amazing new vision for magazines that goes far beyond the printed page
Download Our App
Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone or Android phone with full articles, images and offline viewing
Follow Us On Twitter
Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed
June 2012: Invent Your Own Anything
The 6th annual Invention Awards are here, from an inflatable tourniquet to a better lobster trap to spring-loaded hocket skates. This issue is all about the celebration of invention.
Plus: Making synthetic biology breakthroughs in a garage, building a constantly-moving ping-pong table, and a ridiculously overpowered barbecue.
Popular on Popsci
Most Commented
Technology
- Engineer Details Plans to Build a Real, Burj-Dubai-Sized Starship Enterprise in 20 Years
- Video: Amazing Coating For Bottles' Interiors Lets Ketchup Flow Like Water
- Magnetic Jet Injection Device Can Shoot Any Drug Through the Skin, No Needle Required
- 100-Year Starship Project Forges Ahead With First Round of Funding
- Russian Space Chief: 'We’re Talking About Establishing Permanent Bases' On the Moon
- The Dawn of the Commercial Space Age is (Probably) Happening This Weekend
- Living in the Future: Multitouch, or How I Learned to Love the Mac
- Backpack Radar Can Detect Ambushers Within 150 Acres
- Video: In Record-Breaking Parachuteless Skydive, Man Jumps 2,400 Feet Into a Pile of Boxes
- Would You Ride This Pencil-Shaped Capsule To Space?
Most Emailed
Technology
- NASA Says: Please Don't Touch Our Stuff When You Go to the Moon
- SpaceX Dragon Successfully Captured by International Space Station
- Backpack Radar Can Detect Ambushers Within 150 Acres
- This Summer, Take a Class on How to Design a Space Hotel
- Today in Good Reads: A Q&A With a Military Bioethicist
- Magnetic Jet Injection Device Can Shoot Any Drug Through the Skin, No Needle Required
- Video: In Record-Breaking Parachuteless Skydive, Man Jumps 2,400 Feet Into a Pile of Boxes
- Video: Paratrooping Roomba-Style Drone Concept Could Help Clean Oil Spills
- Snazzy All-in-One "Vancouver Poles" to Replace Ugly Urban Forest of Cell Towers and Cables
- Would You Ride This Pencil-Shaped Capsule To Space?
Most Viewed
Technology
- Living in the Future: Multitouch, or How I Learned to Love the Mac
- NASA Says: Please Don't Touch Our Stuff When You Go to the Moon
- SpaceX Dragon Successfully Captured by International Space Station
- Backpack Radar Can Detect Ambushers Within 150 Acres
- This Summer, Take a Class on How to Design a Space Hotel
- Today in Good Reads: A Q&A With a Military Bioethicist
- Magnetic Jet Injection Device Can Shoot Any Drug Through the Skin, No Needle Required
- Video: In Record-Breaking Parachuteless Skydive, Man Jumps 2,400 Feet Into a Pile of Boxes
- Video: Paratrooping Roomba-Style Drone Concept Could Help Clean Oil Spills
- Snazzy All-in-One "Vancouver Poles" to Replace Ugly Urban Forest of Cell Towers and Cables
Today on PopSci.com
Copyright © 2009 Popular Science
A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Bubbles are so much fun!
Does that dude own that telescope? I mean, I could see the $10k for the camera, but that 'scope looks like it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars
now that, is incredible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
why learn from your own mistakes, when you could learn from the mistakes of others?
“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible” -Albert Ein
wow beautiful
_________________
The people of the world only divide into two kinds, One sort with brains who hold no religion, The other with religion and no brain.
- Abu-al-Ala al-Marri
Just maybe, it’s the cosmic egg shell of a galactic baby god being grown in the cosmos. If you mush you face against the monitor and look really close, I think it's going to be a boy.