Astronomy Picture of the Day

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                               2019 February 16
                                      [2]
                           NGC 2359: Thor's Helmet
            Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Ignacio Diaz Bobillo [4]

Explanation: NGC 2359 is a helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like
appendages popularly called Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse
god [5] , Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the helmet is
more like an interstellar bubble [6] , blown as a fast wind from the bright,
massive star near the bubble's center inflates a region within the surrounding
molecular cloud. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star [7] , the central star is an
extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova [8]  stage of
evolution. NGC 2359 is located [9]  about 15,000 light-years away in the
constellation Canis Major [10] . The remarkably detailed image [11] is a mixed
cocktail of data from broadband and narrowband filters that captures natural
looking stars and the glow of the nebula's [12] filamentary structures. It
highlights a blue-green color from strong emission due to oxygen [13] atoms in
the glowing gas.

              Tomorrow's picture: shadow of a mechanical martian

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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1902/thor_LHORHGOBO_final.jpg
  [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [4] http://www.pampaskies.com/gallery3/index.php
  [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor
  [6] ap131214.html
  [7] http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/a... 980603a.html
  [8] ap050910.html
  [9] ap100319.html
  [10] http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemI...
  [11] http://www.pampaskies.com/gallery3/
Deep-Space-Objects/TH_LHORHGOBO_final
  [12] http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-3881/118/2/948
  [13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebulium
  [14] ap190215.html
  [15] archivepix.html
  [16] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [17] lib/aptree.html
  [18] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apo...
  [19] calendar/allyears.html
  [20] /apod.rss
  [21] lib/edlinks.html
  [22] lib/about_apod.html
  [23] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?dat...
  [24] ap190217.html
  [25] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [26] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [27] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnel...
  [28] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [29] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [30] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Priv...
  [31] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [32] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [33] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [34] http://www.mtu.edu/

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