Astronomy Picture of the Day -- MWC 922: The Red Square Nebula

NASA ^ | January 31, 2016 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: What could cause a nebula to appear square? No one is quite sure. The hot star system known as MWC 922, however, appears to be embedded in a nebula with just such a shape. The featured image combines infrared exposures from the Hale Telescope on Mt. Palomar in California, and the Keck-2 Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. A leading progenitor hypothesis for the square nebula is that the central star or stars somehow expelled cones of gas during a late developmental stage. For MWC 922, these cones happen to incorporate nearly right angles and be visible from the sides. Supporting evidence for the cone hypothesis includes radial spokes in the image that might run along the cone walls. Researchers speculate that the cones viewed from another angle would appear similar to the gigantic rings of supernova 1987A, possibly indicating that a star in MWC 922 might one day itself explode in a similar supernova.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit and Copyright: Peter Tuthill (Sydney U.) & James Lloyd (Cornell)]

[SunkenCiv]

The Big One

join or quit list APoD 'blog post new APoD topic Astronomy Picture of the Day topic & keyword Astronomy Chat, Bloggers & keyword Science Chat, Bloggers & keyword NASA's APoD archive Calendar 1995-present APoD on your desktop

[P.O.E.]

If you look close, you can see the spires of St. Basil’s.

[BenLurkin]

Saw the headline and thought this was about Bernie Sanders’ honeymoon.

[Sioux-san]

Thank you - you made me laugh out loud. Nothing like a good nebula to get your day going!

[jpsb]

Nice, love your pics, thanks.

[IC Ken]

Thank you. Amazing.

[r_barton]

I remember when the Mt Palomar telescope was the world's largest with its 200-inch (5-meter) mirror. Now there are 409 inch (10.4-meter) telescopes. The Hubble Telescope has a 94-inch (2.4-meter) mirror.

List of largest optical reflecting telescopesr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_optical_reflecting_telescopes

Comparison optical telescope primary mirrors.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Comparison_optical_telescope_primary_mirrors.svgr.

[samtheman]

beautiful

[JoeProBono]

[AdmSmith]

Something for Tuesday?

https://twitter.com/_SpaceWeather_/status/693777119009193984

http://www.spaceweatherlive.com/

[left that other site]

Wow...never saw that one before. It’s very cool! :-)

[SunkenCiv]

At first (before I red, er, read the description) I thought it was going to be a quasar.

[SunkenCiv]

;’) More like Orthanc or Barad-dur.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure!

[Tucker39]

I’m thinking that a special effects filter on the camera might be a good guess.

[TheOldLady]

Great APOD, Mr. Civilizations! Thank you for the post and ping.

The comparisons among all the long range telescopes is particularly interesting.

The nebula itself looks like an enormous faceted ruby to me, and it’s beautiful.

[Tucker39]

For those who would not like my opinion stated above; my original opinion was that it appears square because that’s how the Creator, The Lord Jesus Christ designed it.

And BTW, that’s why we have taste buds on our tongues instead of our ear lobes; and why our eyes and our feet both point in the same direction. Because our loving Creator designed us that way. Beats any other possible arrangement.

[JoeProBono]