February 16, 2015 - Running Rings Around the Nebula
Running Rings Around the Nebula The familiar Ring Nebula, 2,000 light-years away, takes on a new, more complicated appearance in this image combining visible-light data from Hubble with infrared data from the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona. The blue gas in the nebula’s center is actually a football-shaped structure that pierces the surrounding red doughnut-shaped material. Dark, irregular knots of dense gas embedded along the inner rim of the ring resemble spokes in a bicycle. Researchers matched up the knots with the spikes of light around the bright, main ring, which are a shadow effect. The faint, scallop-shaped material surrounding the ring was expelled by the star during the early stages of the planetary nebula formation. This outer material was imaged by the Large Binocular Telescope.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, C.R. O’Dell (Vanderbilt University), and D. Thompson (Large Binocular Telescope Observatory)
Weekly Calendar
February 16-22, 2015
Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
Monday 16
Presidents' Day
1948: Gerard Kuiper discovers Miranda, moon of Uranus
1965: Saturn SA-9 launched
Tuesday 17
Mercury 3° south of Moon
1959: Vanguard 2 launched
1965: Ranger 8 launched
1996: NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft launched
2007: THEMIS spacecraft launched
2009: Dawn spacecraft flies by Mars
Wednesday 18
Ash Wednesday
New Moon 6:47 PM ET
1930: Pluto discovered by Clyde Tombaugh
1970: HL-10 sets lifting body speed record
1977: First captive flight of space shuttle Enterprise
Thursday 19
Chinese New Year
Moon at perigee
1473: Nicholas Copernicus born
1986: Mir space station launched
Friday 20
Mars 1.5° south of Moon
Venus 2° south of Moon
1962: Friendship 7 launched; John Glenn becomes first American to orbit Earth
1965: Ranger 8 impacts the Moon, returns photographs
1994: Clementine enters lunar orbit
Saturday 21
Venus 0.5° south of Mars
Uranus 0.3° south of Moon
1931: Germany's first liquid-fuel rocket launched by VfR flies 10 feet
Sunday 22
1966: Cosmos 110 launched, sets record for dogs in space (22 days)
1978: First Navstar GPS satellite launched
1996: STS-75 Columbia launched