Gone with the wind

M1-67 is the youngest wind-nebula around a Wolf-Rayet star, called WR124, in our Galaxy. These Wolf-Rayet stars start their lives with dozens of times the mass of our Sun, but loose most of it through a powerful wind, which is ultimately responsible for the formation of the nebula.

Ten years ago, Hubble Space Telescope observations revealed a wealth of small knots and substructures inside the nebula. The same team, led by Cédric Foellmi (ESO), has now used ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) to watch how these structures have evolved and what they can teach us about stellar winds, their chemistry, and how they mix with the surrounding interstellar medium, before the star will eventually blow everything away in a fiery supernova explosion.

The image is based on FORS1 data obtained by the Paranal Science team with the VLT through 2 wide (B and V) and 3 narrow-band filters.

Kilde:

ESO

Om billedet

Id:wr124
Type:Observation
Udgivelsesdato:3. december 2009 23:20
Størrelse:3135 x 2679 px

Om objektet

Navn:WR124
Type:Milky Way : Nebula
Milky Way : Star : Type : Wolf-Rayet
Afstand:10000 lysår
Constellation:Sagitta
Kategori:Nebulae
Stars

Billedformater

Stor JPEG
3,4 MB
Skrærm JPEG
218,8 KB

Baggrundsbilleder

1024x768
271,9 KB
1280x1024
447,9 KB
1600x1200
681,8 KB
1920x1200
866,2 KB
2048x1536
1,2 MB

Koordinater

Position (RA):19 11 30.92
Position (Dec):16° 51' 37.95"
Field of view:3.29 x 2.81 arcminutes
Orientering:Nord er 0.2° venstre fra lodret

Farver & filtre

BåndTeleskop
Optisk
V
Very Large Telescope
FORS1
Optisk
B
Very Large Telescope
FORS1