APOD 3.7

This is a magnificent shot from the constellation VELA of supernova remnants from over eleven thousand years ago. This image captures the filamentory material and shock. The shot spans over one hundred light years, and, from our perspective on Earth, appears twenty times larger than a full moon. The star is now in its pulsar phase which, according to wikipedia on 2/16/07 at 10:02 AM, are gay neutron stars that emit information in the form of radio waves. The star rotates at an amazing ten times a second. Did I mention the colors were pretty?

Planetary Nebulae Links

http://www.huginn.com/knuth/pne.html

http://astro.nineplanets.org/twn/types.html

http://fusedweb.pppl.gov/CPEP/Chart_Pages/5.Plasmas/Nebula/Planetary.html


http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~icke/html/VincentPN.html

http://heritage.stsci.edu/2000/28/pne.html

http://archive.stsci.edu/hst/mcpn/home.html

http://observe.arc.nasa.gov/nasa/space/stellardeath/stellardeath_2a.html




http://virtualcolony.com/sac/planetary.html

APOD 3.5

I posted APOD 3.2 and 3.4, since I had mistakenly saved them as drafts. Anyways, this awesome picture is of the FLAME nebula, in the constellation Orion. It's unique orange glow is due to the high concentration of hydrogen atoms glowing. The void in the middle of the nebula is a dust cloud that blocks the source of the clouds : a young star cluster. An infrared picture reveals the stars in all their glory. The largest of these is probably the source of the ultraviolet radiation that ionizes the hydrogen, thus creating the magnificent view we see here.