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.

Crédit:

ESO

À propos de l'image

Identification:wr124
Type:Observation
Date de publication:3 décembre 2009 23:20
Taille:3135 x 2679 px

À propos de l'objet

Nom:WR124
Type:Milky Way : Nebula
Milky Way : Star : Type : Wolf-Rayet
Distance:10000 années lumière
Constellation:Sagitta
Catégorie:Nebulae
Stars

Image Formats

Grand JPEG
3,4 Mio
JPEG taille écran
218,8 Kio

Fonds d'écran

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

Coordinates

Position (RA):19 11 30.92
Position (Dec):16° 51' 37.95"
Field of view:3.29 x 2.81 arcminutes
Orientation:North is 0.2° left of vertical

Couleurs & filtres

DomaineTélescope
Visible
V
Very Large Telescope
FORS1
Visible
B
Very Large Telescope
FORS1