The picture on this page is entitled:
Sher 25: A Pending Supernova?.
Credit & Copyright: W. Brandner (UIUC), E.K. Grebel (U. Wuerzburg),
et al., ESO, 1.54-m Telescope, Chile. [Size: 131 K].
It is to be found at the excellent
Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive.
Explanation:
No supernova
has ever been predicted - yet. These
dramatic stellar explosions
that destroy stars, that create and disperse the
elements
that compose
people and
planets, that
light up the night sky,
are not so well understood that astronomers can accurately
predict when a star will explode - yet. Perhaps
Sher 25 will be the first. Sher 25, designated by the arrow, is a blue supergiant
star located just outside the
open star cluster and
ionized
region named NGC 3603. Sher 25 lies in the center of an
hourglass shaped nebula
much like the
one that surrounds the last bright supernova visible from Earth:
SN1987a.
Now the hourglass shaped rings around
SN1987a
were emitted before that blue supergiant exploded.
Maybe Sher 25 has expelled these bipolar rings in a step that closely precedes a supernova.
Maybe not. If so,
Sher 25 may be within a few thousand years of its spectacular finale.
Here are just a few more of the many other beautiful far-out spots out there:
Rumors of a Strange Universe
Hubble Heritage Project - Archive Gallery Page
...and then eventually,
welcome back to Planet Earth
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