Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg)  ·  Contains:  34 P Cyg  ·  Crescent nebula  ·  IC 4996  ·  NGC 6888  ·  PK076+01.2  ·  Sh2-105  ·  The star 34Cyg
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The Crescent and Soap Bubble Nebulae, Gabe Shaughnessy
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The Crescent and Soap Bubble Nebulae

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The Crescent and Soap Bubble Nebulae, Gabe Shaughnessy
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The Crescent and Soap Bubble Nebulae

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Description

The Crescent and Soap bubble are two very different nebulae in the heart of the constellation Cygnus. The pair lie in a dense field of gas and dust.

The Crescent nebula is an emission nebula that lies around 5000 ly away in the constellation Cygnus. The nebula is formed by stellar wind from the central Wolf-Rayet star, a star that has consumed its hydrogen fuel and currently burns helium and other heavier elements. The stellar wind ejected amounts to a solar mass every 10k years. This stellar wind collided with the slower moving stellar wind which was released during its earlier red giant phase. During this collision, two shock waves resulted; one moving away from the star and one toward the star. The shock wave moving toward the star compressed the remaining gas, making a strong X-ray source. It's thought that the WR star will explode as a supernova in 100k years.

The Soap Bubble Nebula is a planetary nebula about 4.3 arc-min across and was only recently discovered by D. Jurasevich in 2007/2008. It lies some 4000 light-years away and spans a diameter of 5 light years. As a planetary nebula, it's the expanding shell of a ionized gas thrown from the host star by strong stellar winds as it undergoes it's transition from red giant phase. These gasses become ionized by the remaining red giant core, making them visible to us.

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The Crescent and Soap Bubble Nebulae, Gabe Shaughnessy

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Nebulae