Hubble Watches Star Tear Apart its Neighborhood

Esahubble_opo0023b_1024

esahubble_opo0023b July 13th, 2000

Credit: NASA/ESA, Brian D. Moore, Jeff Hester, Paul Scowen (Arizona State University), Reginald Dufour (Rice University)

NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a view of a stellar demolition zone in our Milky Way Galaxy: a massive star, nearing the end of its life, tearing apart the shell of surrounding material it blew off 250, 000 years ago with its strong stellar wind. The shell of material, dubbed the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888), surrounds the 'hefty', aging star WR 136, an extremely rare and short-lived class of super-hot star called a Wolf-Rayet. Hubble's multicolored picture reveals with unprecedented clarity that the shell of matter is a network of filaments and dense knots, all enshrouded in a thin 'skin' of gas [seen in blue]. The whole structure looks like oatmeal trapped inside a balloon. The skin is glowing because it is being blasted by ultraviolet light from WR 136.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0023b/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Crescent Nebula NGC 6888 WR 136
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Type > Wolf-Rayet
Nebula > Appearance > Emission
Esahubble_opo0023b_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 20h 12m 32.3s
DEC = 38° 27’ 14.7”
Orientation
North is 9.9° CW
Field of View
2.5 x 2.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Cygnus

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (SII) 673.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (H-alpha) 656.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (OIII) 502.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Blue
Esahubble_opo0023b_1280
×
ID
opo0023b
Subject Category
B.3.2.4   B.4.2.1  
Subject Name
Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888, WR 136
Credits
NASA/ESA, Brian D. Moore, Jeff Hester, Paul Scowen (Arizona State University), Reginald Dufour (Rice University)
Release Date
2000-07-13T07:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0023b/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Distance in light years from: http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-3881/119/6/2991/990405.text.html
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFPC2, WFPC2, WFPC2
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
SII, H-alpha, OIII
Central Wavelength
673, 656, 502
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
303.134399416, 38.4540852165
Reference Dimension
1497.0, 1517.0
Reference Pixel
750.0, 760.0
Scale
-2.75352296786e-05, 2.75352296786e-05
Rotation
-9.9199999999999857
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
opo0023b
Metadata Date
2003-12-09T17:16:26+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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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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