Jumbo Jellyfish or Massive Star?

Wise_wise2010-021_1024

wise_WISE2010-021 June 17th, 2010

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Some might see a blood-red jellyfish in a forest of seaweed, while others might see a big, red eye or a pair of lips. In fact, the red-colored object in this new infrared image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is a sphere of stellar innards, blown out from a humongous star.

The star (white dot in center of red ring) is one of the most massive stellar residents of our Milky Way Galaxy. Objects like this are called Wolf-Rayet stars, after the astronomers who found the first few, and they make our Sun look puny by comparison. Called V385 Carinae, this star is 35 times as massive as our Sun, with a diameter nearly 18 times as large. It's hotter, too, and shines with more than one million times the amount of light.

Fiery candles like this burn out quickly, leading short lives of only a few million years. As they age, they blow out more and more of the heavier atoms cooking inside them -- atoms such as oxygen that are needed for life as we know it.

The material is puffed out into clouds like the one that glows brightly in this WISE image. In this case, the hollow sphere showed up prominently only at the longest of four infrared wavelengths detected by WISE. Astronomers speculate this infrared light comes from oxygen atoms, which have been stripped of some of their electrons by ultraviolet radiation from the star. When the electrons join up again with the oxygen atoms, light is produced that WISE can detect with its 22-micron infrared light detector. The process is similar to what happens in fluorescent light bulbs.

Infrared light detected by WISE at 12 microns is colored green, while 3.4- and 4.6-micron light is blue. The green, kelp-looking material is warm dust, and the blue dots are stars in our Milky Way galaxy.

This image mosaic is made up of about 300 overlapping frames, taken as WISE continues its survey of the entire sky -- an expansive search, sure to turn up more fascinating creatures swimming in our cosmic ocean.

V385 Carinae is located in the Carina constellation, about 16,000 light-years from Earth.

Provider: Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer

Image Source: /image/wise/WISE2010-021

Curator: Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Berkeley, CA, USA

Image Use Policy: Pulic Domain

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
v385 Car v385car
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Type > Variable > Eclipsing
Star > Type > Wolf-Rayet
Nebula > Type > Planetary
Wise_wise2010-021_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 11h 6m 16.7s
DEC = -65° 30’ 7.8”
Orientation
North is 127.2° CCW
Field of View
2.4 x 2.4 degrees
Constellation
Carina

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Blue WISE Infrared (Near-IR) 3.4 µm
Cyan WISE Infrared (Near-IR) 4.6 µm
Green WISE Infrared (Mid-IR) 12.0 µm
Red WISE Infrared (Mid-IR) 22.0 µm
Spectrum_ir1
Blue
Cyan
Green
Red
Wise_wise2010-021_1280
×
ID
WISE2010-021
Subject Category
B.3.2.1.3.   B.3.2.4.   B.4.1.3.  
Subject Name
v385 Car, v385car
Credits
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
Release Date
2010-06-17
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
/image/wise/WISE2010-021
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Good
Distance Notes
Facility
WISE, WISE, WISE, WISE
Instrument
Color Assignment
Blue, Cyan, Green, Red
Band
Infrared, Infrared, Infrared, Infrared
Bandpass
Near-IR, Near-IR, Mid-IR, Mid-IR
Central Wavelength
3400, 4600, 12000, 22000
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
166.5695216, -65.5021662
Reference Dimension
6242.0, 6242.0
Reference Pixel
3122.0, 3122.0
Scale
-0.000381996, 0.00038199564
Rotation
127.24
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
WCS retrieved using CXCs PinpointWCS
Creator (Curator)
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
URL
http://wise.astro.ucla.edu
Name
Email
outreach@ssl.berkeley.edu
Telephone
Address
7 Gauss Way
City
Berkeley
State/Province
CA
Postal Code
94720
Country
USA
Rights
Pulic Domain
Publisher
Publisher ID
wise
Resource ID
Resource URL
/image/wise/WISE2010-021
Related Resources
Metadata Date
2018-01-11T02:37:38Z
Metadata Version
1.2
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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