February 15, 2014
The universe does not repeat itself. Every sunrise is unique, every snowflake singular, and every birthday yours alone.
NGC 2359: Thor's Helmet
Birthday · February 15, 2014
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APOD published February 15, 2014. Credit: Fera Photography. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
This helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages is popularly called Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the helmet is more like an interstellar bubble, blown as a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center sweeps through a surrounding molecular cloud. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution. Cataloged as NGC 2359, the nebula is located about 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Canis Major. The sharp image, made using broadband and narrowband filters, captures striking details of the nebula's filamentary structures. It shows off a blue-green color from strong emission due to oxygen atoms in the glowing gas.
Image credit: Fera Photography