Image of the Day: Deathly Beauty of The Bubble Nebula

The mesmerizing Bubble Nebula or NGC 7635 is 10 light-year diameter object a mere 11,000 light-years away toward the constellation Cassiopeia near a giant molecular cloud which contains the expansion of the bubble. Above and right of the Bubble's center is a hot, O-type star, several 100,000 times more luminous and approximately 45 times more massive than our Sun. Fierce stellar winds and intense radiation from that star has blasted out the structure of glowing gas against denser material in a surrounding molecular cloud.

Image Credit: Brad Ehrhorn/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF

The mesmerizing Bubble Nebula or NGC 7635 is 10 light-year diameter object a mere 11,000 light-years away toward the constellation Cassiopeia near a giant molecular cloud which contains the expansion of the bubble. Above and right of the Bubble's center is a hot, O-type star, several 100,000 times more luminous and approximately 45 times more massive than our Sun. Fierce stellar winds and intense radiation from that star has blasted out the structure of glowing gas against denser material in a surrounding molecular cloud.

Image Credit: Brad Ehrhorn/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF