The world is celebrating Halloween and it seems like NASA too is in a mood to follow the trend. They have shared an image taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. It shows a cosmic jack-o’-lantern (the carved out pumpkin lamp) in space.
The Spitzer Space Telescope detects infrared light. It detected the star glowing like a candle at the center of a hollowed-out pumpkin. The multi-colored image shows the combination of its wavelengths.
Check out the image here:
As reported by the agency to express UK, a massive star known as an O-type star which is around 15 to 20 times heavier than the Sun, has carved the shapes into this nebula. The powerful outflow of radiation and particles from the star is likely to have swept across the surrounding dust and gas outward creating deep gouges in this cloud.
The colors captured in the NASA image represent different wavelengths of infrared light. The green and red regions represent light emitted by dust radiating at different temperatures. The O-type star that carved out the Jack-o’-lantern is represented by the white spot near the center of the nebula
The space agency further explained that the combination of green and red in this image created yellow hues. The blue colour represents a wavelength mostly emitted by stars and some very hot regions of the nebula, while white coloured regions indicate where the objects are bright in all three colours.
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