Eerie photo of star’s ‘death explosion’ that looks like a giant BAT in space revealed by Nasa
NASA has released an unusual image of the ‘death explosion’ of a massive star that looks just like a bat.
Nicknamed the Bat Nebula, the eerie photo was taken during an observation of the eastern Veil Nebula.
The Veil Nebula is a large remnant of a supernova, the last evolutionary stage of a giant star.
The supernova death explosion resulted in an expanding cloud of debris, part of which makes up the Bat Nebula.
The star that created the cloud of debris is thought to have been 20 times more massive than the Sun.
It’s said to have exploded 8,000 years ago.
What is a supernova?
Here's what you need to know...
- A supernova is a powerful and bright stellar explosion
- It occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf goes into runaway nuclear fusion
- The original object collapses into either a neutron star or black hole, or is completely destroyed
- The “peak luminosity” of a supernova is comparable to an entire galaxy, before fading over several weeks or months
- Just three naked-eye supernova events have been observed in the Milky Way during the last thousand years
- The most recent of which was Kepler’s Supernova in 1604
- A supernova remnant is the structure resulting from the explosion of a star in a supernova
- It is bounded by an expanding shock wave
- And it’s made from ejected material expanding fromm the exposion, and interstellar material it sweeps up along the way
The entire Veil Nebula is actually a rough circle shape, which Nasa says covers nearly three degrees of the sky towards the Cygnus constellation.
In comparison the Bat Nebula within the Veil takes up half of a degree, making it about the size of the Moon.
The Veil is an estimated 1,400 light-years from Earth.
In the image released by Nasa, emissions from hydrogen atoms appear in red and strong emissions from oxygen and nitrogen appear blue.
A creepy bat isn’t the only spooky shape that the Nebula holds.
In the western part of the Veil, experts have also nicknamed an area The Witch’s Broom Nebula because of its broom like shape.
In other news, ‘God of Chaos’ space rock capable of killing millions could hit Earth on 10 different dates.
Three monster black holes have been spotted crashing into each other.
And, Nasa is testing an alien-hunting probe that will dive into the icy oceans of Saturn’s moons.
Do you think the ‘death explosion’ looks like a giant bat? Let us know in the comments…
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