June 24, 1997
In the grand ledger of cosmic time, a human life is breathtakingly brief. But brevity is not insignificance.
Antares
Birthday · June 24, 1997
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APOD published June 24, 1997. Credit: D. Malin (AAO), AATB, UKS Telescope. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Antares is a huge star. In a class called red supergiant, Antares is about 700 times the size of our own Sun, 15 times more massive, and 10,000 times brighter. Antares is the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius and one of the brighter stars in all the night sky. Antares is surrounded by a nebula of gas which it has itself expelled. Radiation from Antares' blue stellar companion helps cause the nebular gas to glow, as photographed above. Antares is located about 500 light years away.
Image credit: D. Malin (AAO), AATB, UKS Telescope