RCW 58: 恒星风塑造的星云

2023年2月8日

Stellar Wind-Shaped Nebula RCW 58
Image Credit & Copyright: Mike Selby & Mark Hanson; Text: Natalia Lewandowska (SUNY Oswego)

Explanation: Imagine traveling to a star about 100 times as massive as our Sun, a million times more luminous, and with 30 times the surface temperature. Such stars exist, and some are known as Wolf Rayet (WR) stars, named after French astronomers Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet. The central star in this image is WR 40 which is located toward the constellation of Carina. Stars like WR 40 live fast and die young in comparison with the Sun. They quickly exhaust their core hydrogen supply, move on to fusing heavier core elements, and expand while ejecting their outer layers via high stellar winds. In this case, the central star WR 40 ejects the atmosphere at a speed of nearly 100 kilometers per second, and these outer layers have become the expanding oval-shaped nebula RCW 58.

Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator

Tomorrow’s picture: open space

RCW 58: 恒星风塑造的星云
图像提供与版权: Mike Selby & Mark Hanson; 文稿: Natalia Lewandowska (SUNY Oswego)

说明: 请想像一下，你要造访的恒星质量大约是太阳的100倍，亮度是太阳的1百万倍，而表面温度则是太阳的30倍。这样的恒星是真实存在的，有些是因法国天文学家沃尔夫与拉叶而得名，故有沃尔夫-拉叶（WR）恒星之称。这幅图像中心的恒星，是位于船底座方向的WR 40。与太阳相比，像WR 40这样的恒星活得​​灿烂、死得早。它们迅速的耗尽核心的氢燃料，接着融合核心更重的元素，更透过高速恒星风抛出外层的气壳发生膨胀。在此例里，WR 40的中心星以将近每秒100公里的速度抛出外层气壳，而这些气壳就成为不停扩张的椭圆形星云RCW 58。

几乎超空间: 随机APOD生成器

明日的图片: open space