                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

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      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                 2021 May 6

                             Windblown NGC 3199
         Image Credit & Copyright: Mike Selby and Roberto Colombari

   Explanation: NGC 3199 lies about 12,000 light-years away, a glowing
   cosmic cloud in the nautical southern constellation of Carina. The
   nebula is about 75 light-years across in this narrowband, false-color
   view. Though the deep image reveals a more or less complete bubble
   shape, it does look very lopsided with a much brighter edge along the
   top. Near the center is a Wolf-Rayet star, a massive, hot, short-lived
   star that generates an intense stellar wind. In fact, Wolf-Rayet stars
   are known to create nebulae with interesting shapes as their powerful
   winds sweep up surrounding interstellar material. In this case, the
   bright edge was thought to indicate a bow shock produced as the star
   plowed through a uniform medium, like a boat through water. But
   measurements have shown the star is not really moving directly toward
   the bright edge. So a more likely explanation is that the material
   surrounding the star is not uniform, but clumped and denser near the
   bright edge of windblown NGC 3199.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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