Impact

BEAUTIFUL COSMIC BUBBLES BLOWING RIGHT NOW

Supernova Remnant Bubble by Hubble Heritage.

by Hubble Heritage. Supernova Remnant Bubble.

Did you know that stars can blow bubbles? That’s what we’re checking out today. Of course, they are the biggest, and perhaps the most beautiful, bubbles in the universe.

We’ve been using the term “mind-blowing” all week long, as we explore the beauty of bubbles, but the gas bubbles blown by nebula are beyond beyond beyond.

THE BUBBLE NEBULA -- NGC7635

Nebula NGC 7635, also known as the Bubble Nebula, was created by gas emissions, as it expanded, formed by solar winds and radiation emitted from central star 10 to 20 times the size of our sun.

The photo was taken at the Sierra Remote Observatories in California this past August.

The Bubble Nebula was discovered in 1787 by William Herschel.

The star responsible for blowing the The Bubble Nebula is one of around 300 of the most massive stars in the Milky Way.

CASSIOPEIA BUBBLE

This bubble is happening in the Cassiopeia constellation, over 7,000 light-years from Earth. It is about 6 light-years wide.

The source of the bubble is a bright Wolf-Rayet star at the center of the gas cloud, as it is approaching supernova stage. It burns from 25,000 to 50,000 Kelvin (about 24,726 degrees Celsius or 44,540 degrees Fahrenheit).

HD50896 BUBBLE

Another Wolf-Rayet Star, HD 50896, is blowing out at a rate of thousands of kilometers per second.

These photos were taken using the European Photon Imaging Camera aboard the European Space Agency’s X-ray space observatory XMM-Newton.

This bubble is located about 5,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Canis Major. It is about 60 light-years across and it is one of two known Wolf-Rayet bubbles to emit X-rays.

The bubble will pop, of course, when the supernova finally explodes.

ANT NEBULA BUBBLE

Beautiful blistering bubbles are emerging from the dying stages of the dying star within the planetary Ant Nebula.

SNR 0509-67.5 BUBBLE

Space bubble images are complicated to capture. These are created by combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.

The SNR 0509-67.5 bubble is happening in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small galaxy about 160,000 light-years from Earth. It is about 23 light-years across and is expanding at more than 11 million miles per hour (5,000 kilometers per second).

SXP 1062 PULSAR BUBBLE

The pulsar, known as The SXP 1062, is blowing this bubble beauty inside the Small Magellanic Cloud. The pulsar is estimated to be between 10,000 and 40,000 years old. It is rotating about once every 18 minutes, far slower than most pulsar, which revolve multiple times per second.

CAMELOPARDALIS BUBBLE

This beautiful bubble was formed by Camelopardalis (The Giraffe), or U Cam for short, a star nearing the end of its life. Every few thousand years, it blows out spherical shell of gas as a layer of helium around its core begins to fuse.

U Cam is rare type of carbon star. Its atmosphere contains more carbon than oxygen.

The shell of gas is visible in intricate detail in the image captured by Hubble.

FERMI BUBBLES

Check out the two of the largest bubbles ever seen. They are gamma-ray bubbles that stretch for tens of thousands of light-years above and below the Milky Way Galaxy.

They were recently discovered by astrophysicist Douglas Finkbeiner, with images captured by the The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The latest attempt to capture these images was co-led by Anna Franckowiak of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.

These bubbles have very clear and measurable outlines and appear to be fixed at each pole of the Milky Way.

Two lobes extend tens of thousands of light-years into intergalactic space. The gamma-ray light show is “like two 30,000-light-year-tall incandescent bulbs screwed into the center of the galaxy,” according to a Stanford University news release.

Scientists speculate that the bubble is the result of an ancient eruption by the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole which may have energized galactic matter.

Read more about the Fermi Bubbles in The Astrophysical Journal.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Bubbles in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 01.04.2015. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!

PHOTO CREDITS:

Image: by Hubble Heritage. Supernova Remnant Bubble.
Image: by dave halliday. Bubble reimaged.
Image: by Ram Viswanathan. Bubble Nebula HaRGB.
Image: by Carsten Frenzl. NGC7635 - Bubble Nebula.
Image: Courtesy of the European Space Agency. Wolf-Rayet HD 50896 Bubble in Canis Major Constellation.
Image: by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Ant Nebula Bubble.
Image: Courtesy of NASA. SNR 0509-67.5 Bubble in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Image: Courtesy of NASA. The SXP 1062 Pulsar Bubble in the Small Magellanic Cloud.
Image: by ESA/NASA. Camelopardalis Bubble.
Image: by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Fermi Gamma-Ray Bubbles.
Image: by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Fermi Gamma-Ray Bubbles.
Image: by ESA/Planck Collaboration. Galactic Haze/bubbles.
Image: by dave halliday. The Bubble Nebula.