                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    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.

                                2026 March 6

                         The Astrosphere of HD 61005
    Image Credit: X-ray: NASA / CXC / Johns Hopkins Univ. / C.M. Lisse et
      al.; Infrared: NASA / ESA / STIS; Optical: NSF / NoirLab / CTIO /
                                   DECaPS2
    Processing: NASA / CXC / SAO / N. Wolk - Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA
                           GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

   Explanation: Do young stars blow bubbles? The larger view shows a
   stellar field observed with the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory
   in Chile, and the inset highlights HD 61005, a star like our Sun, only
   120 light-years away. Much younger than the Sun, at just about 100
   million years old, it blows a fast and dense stellar wind that pushes
   out the cooler dust and gas that surrounds it, forming a bubble called
   an astrosphere. The star-blown bubble was detected with the Chandra
   X-ray Observatory, and it has a diameter roughly 200 times the
   Earth-Sun distance. Our Sun has a bubble too, called the heliosphere,
   which protects the planets from cosmic radiation. Also shown in the
   inset is debris left behind from star formation, observed by Hubble.
   The debris appears as wings, giving the star its nickname: the Moth.

                        Tomorrow's picture: Saros 133
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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