February 27, 2024
You share your birthday with the light of distant galaxies that has been traveling for millions of years just to arrive here, now, alongside...
Supernova Remnant Simeis 147
Birthday · February 27, 2024
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APOD published February 27, 2024. Credit: Stéphane Vetter (Nuits sacrées). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
It's easy to get lost following the intricate, looping, and twisting filaments of supernova remnant Simeis 147. Also cataloged as Sharpless 2-240, the filamentary nebula goes by the popular nickname the Spaghetti Nebula. Seen toward the boundary of the constellations of the Bull (Taurus) and the Charioteer (Auriga), the impressive gas structure covers nearly 3 degrees on the sky, equivalent to 6 full moons. That's about 150 light-years at the stellar debris cloud's estimated distance of 3,000 light-years. This composite image includes data taken through narrow-band filters isolating emission from hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue) glowing gas. The supernova remnant has an estimated age of about 40,000 years, meaning light from this massive stellar explosion first reached the Earth when woolly mammoths roamed free. Besides the expanding remnant, this cosmic catastrophe left behind a pulsar, a spinning neutron star that is the remnant of the original star's core.
Image credit: Stéphane Vetter (Nuits sacrées)