﻿ Astronomy Picture of the Day [1]Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2020 March 2 [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available. Sharpless-308: The Dolphin Nebula Image Credit & Copyright: [3]Chilesope 2, [4]Pleaides Astrophotography Team (Peking U.) Explanation: Blown by fast winds from a hot, massive star, this cosmic bubble is much larger than the dolphin it appears to be. Cataloged as [5]Sharpless 2-308 it lies some 5,200 light-years away toward the constellation of the Big Dog ([6]Canis Major) and covers slightly more of the sky than a [7]Full Moon. That [8]corresponds to a diameter of 60 light-years at its estimated distance. The massive star that created the bubble, a [9]Wolf-Rayet star, is the bright one near the center of the nebula. [10]Wolf-Rayet stars have over 20 times the mass of the [11]Sun and are thought to be in a brief, [12]pre-supernova phase of massive [13]star evolution. Fast winds from this [14]Wolf-Rayet star create the bubble-shaped nebula as they sweep up slower moving material from an earlier phase of evolution. The [15]windblown nebula has an age of about [16]70,000 years. Relatively faint emission captured in the [17]featured expansive image is dominated by the glow of ionized oxygen atoms [18]mapped to a blue hue. Tomorrow's picture: around the moon __________________________________________________________________ [19]< | [20]Archive | [21]Submissions | [22]Index | [23]Search | [24]Calendar | [25]RSS | [26]Education | [27]About APOD | [28]Discuss | [29]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [30]Robert Nemiroff ([31]MTU) & [32]Jerry Bonnell ([33]UMCP) NASA Official: Phillip Newman [34]Specific rights apply. [35]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [36]ASD at [37]NASA / [38]GSFC & [39]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2003/Dolphin_Pleiades_3495.jpg 3. http://www.chilescope.com/about/chilescope/ 4. https://www.astrobin.com/users/PleiadesAstrophotographyTeam/ 5. http://galaxymap.org/cgi-bin/sharpless.py?s=1 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canis_Major 7. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160201.html 8. http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/scale_distance.html 9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf-Rayet_star 10. http://earthsky.org/space/wolf-rayets-are-the-most-massive-and-brightest-stars-known 11. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/sun/overview/ 12. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030325.html 13. https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/how-do-stars-form-and-evolve 14. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/hubble-view-wolf-rayet-stars-intense-and-short-lived 15. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080522.html 16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Paleolithic 17. https://www.astrobin.com/tqo559/ 18. http://bf-astro.com/hubblep.htm 19. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200301.html 20. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 21. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 22. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 23. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 24. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 25. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 26. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 27. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 28. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=200302 29. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200303.html 30. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 31. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 32. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 33. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 34. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 35. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 36. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 37. https://www.nasa.gov/ 38. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 39. http://www.mtu.edu/