June 13, 1998
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us, and yet here you are — a collection of atoms that somehow learned to think, to...
Henize 70: A SuperBubble In The LMC
Birthday · June 13, 1998
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APOD published June 13, 1998. Credit: Anglo-Australian Telescope Board. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Stars with tens of times the mass of the Sun profoundly affect their galactic environment. Churning and mixing the interstellar gas and dust clouds they leave their mark in the compositions and locations of future generations of stars and star systems. Dramatic evidence of this is beautifully illustrated in our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), by the lovely ring shaped nebula, Henize 70. It is actually a luminous "superbubble" of interstellar gas about 300 lightyears in diameter, blown by winds from massive stars and supernova explosions, its interior filled with tenuous hot expanding gas. These superbubbles offer astronomers a chance to explore this crucial connection between the lifecycles of stars and the evolution of galaxies.
Image credit: Anglo-Australian Telescope Board