September 18, 2017 - Stellar Shrapnel
Stellar Shrapnel Hubble has unveiled a small section of the expanding remains of a massive star that exploded 8,000 years ago. The Veil Nebula’s delicate, draped filamentary structure makes it one of the best-known supernova remnants. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, as large as six full Moons as seen from Earth, and resides 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. This view is just a tiny fraction of the nebula’s vast structure, unveiling wisps of gas which are all that remain of what was once a star twenty times the Sun’s mass. The fast-moving blast wave from the ancient explosion is plowing into a wall of cool, denser interstellar gas, emitting light. The nebula lies along the edge of a large bubble of low-density gas that was blown into space by the dying star prior to its self-detonation.
Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Weekly Calendar
September 18-24, 2017
Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
Monday 18
Regulus 0.09° S of Moon
Mars 0.1° S of Moon
Mercury 0.03° N of Moon
1964: Saturn SA-7 launched
1977: Voyager 1 takes photo of Earth and Moon together in space
2006: Anousheh Ansari becomes first woman space tourist
2013: Cygnus 1 supply ship launched to ISS
Tuesday 19
Venus 0.5° north of Regulus
Wednesday 20
Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset
New Moon 1:30 AM ET
1945: Wernher von Braun arrives in United States
1966: Surveyor 2 launched
1970: Luna 16 lands on Moon
1979: HEAO-3 launched
1988: Israel launches its first satellite
Thursday 21
1866: H. G. Wells born
1874: Gustav Holst born
1974: Mariner 10 flies by Mercury for second time
2003: Galileo mission ends
Friday 22
Jupiter 4° south of Moon
Equinox 4:02 PM ET
1990: Pioneer 10 reaches 50 AU from Sun
2006: Hinode spacecraft launched
2014: MAVEN spacecraft enters orbit around Mars
Saturday 23
1783: Caroline Herschel discovers NGC 253
1846: J. G. Galle discovers Neptune
1962: “The Jetsons” premieres
1977: Third glide test of space shuttle Enterprise
Sunday 24
1930: John Young born
1962: MOOSE astronaut rescue system proposed
1970: Luna 16 returns lunar soil samples
1999: IKONOS-1 launched
2014: Mars Orbiter Mission enters orbit around Mars