February 17, 2002
Galaxies were colliding long before you were born, and they will keep colliding long after us all.
The Local Bubble and the Galactic Neighborhood
Birthday · February 17, 2002
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APOD published February 17, 2002. Credit: Linda Huff (American Scientist), Priscilla Frisch (U. Chicago). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What surrounds the Sun in this neck of the Milky Way Galaxy? Our current best guess is depicted in the above map of the surrounding 1500 light years constructed from various observations and deductions. Currently, the Sun is passing through a Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), shown in violet, which is flowing away from the Scorpius-Centaurus Association of young stars. The LIC resides in a low-density hole in the interstellar medium (ISM) called the Local Bubble, shown in black. Nearby, high-density molecular clouds including the Aquila Rift surround star forming regions, each shown in orange. The Gum Nebula, shown in green, is a region of hot ionized hydrogen gas. Inside the Gum Nebula is the Vela Supernova Remnant, shown in pink, which is expanding to create fragmented shells of material like the LIC. Future observations should help astronomers discern more about the local Galactic Neighborhood and how it might have affected Earth's past climate.
Image credit: Linda Huff (American Scientist), Priscilla Frisch (U. Chicago)