Like a ship plowing through cosmic
seas, runaway star Zeta
Ophiuchi produces the arcing interstellar bow wave or bow shock seen
in this stunning infrared
portrait. In the false-color view, bluish Zeta Oph, a star
about 20 times more massive than the Sun, lies near the center of the frame,
moving toward the left at 24 kilometers per second. Its strong stellar wind
precedes it, compressing and heating the dusty interstellar material and
shaping the curved shock front. What set this star in motion? Zeta Oph was
likely once a member of a binary star system, its
companion star was more massive and hence shorter lived. When the companion exploded as a supernova catastrophically
losing mass, Zeta Oph was flung out of the system. About 460 light-years away, Zeta Oph is
65,000 times more luminous than the Sun and
would be one of the brighter stars in the sky if it weren’t surrounded by
obscuring dust. The
image spans about 1.5 degrees or 12 light-years at
the estimated distance of Zeta Ophiuchi.
Last week, NASA placed the Spitzer Space
Telescope in safe mode,
ending its 16 successful years of
studying our universe.
Image & info via APOD
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