NASAのインスタグラム(nasa) - 12月23日 05時31分

A celestial holiday wreath made of sparkling lights! Swaddled in a gossamer cocoon of reflective dust and illuminated, the super star in the center of this image from the @NASAHubble Space Telescope is ten times more massive than the Sun and 200 times larger. The super star is also one of the most luminous with an average intrinsic brightness is 15,000 times greater than the Sun's luminosity.

This star also rhythmically brightens and dims over a six-week cycle. The nebula flickers in brightness as pulses of light from the star propagate outwards. Hubble took a series of photos of light flashes rippling across the nebula in a phenomenon known as a "light echo." Even though light travels through space fast enough to span the gap between Earth and the Moon in a little over a second, the nebula is so large that reflected light can actually be photographed traversing the nebula.

By observing the fluctuation of light itself, as well as recording the faint reflections of light pulses moving across the nebula, astronomers are able to measure these light echoes and pin down a very accurate distance. The distance to the super star has been narrowed down to 6,500 light-years (with a margin of error of only one percent). Image credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) – Hubble/Europe Collaboration; Acknowledgement: H. Bond (STScI and Pennsylvania State University)
#nasa #hubble #star #nebula #flicker #light #space #universe #science #astronomy #telescope #picoftheday

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