Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Future Supernova Is Surrounded By Hydrogen Clouds

Future Supernova Is Surrounded By Hydrogen Clouds:
Future Supernova Is Surrounded By Hydrogen Clouds
A “super star cluster”, Westerlund 1, which is about 16,000 light-years from Earth. It can be found in the southern constellation of Ara. The picture was taken from the European Southern Observatory’s VLT Survey Telescope. Credit: ESO/VPHAS+ Survey/N. Wright
The faint green glow you see in that picture is not an early harbringer of Hallowe’en spooks. It’s hydrogen gas clouds found recently nearby W26, a future supernova in the star cluster Westerlund 1.
The European Southern Observatory’s VLT Survey Telescope in Chile spotted the hydrogen in the cluster, which has hundreds of huge stars that are only believed to be a few million years old. (Our solar system, by comparison, is about 4.5 billion years old.)
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Read the rest of Future Supernova Is Surrounded By Hydrogen Clouds (136 words)

© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2013. |Permalink |No comment |
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