Stellar Outbursts Leave Behind a Galactic Shell
This enormous bubble was blown into the dusty, gas disk of our Milky Way Galaxy by winds and radiation from a few dozen hot, massive stars and the explosions of dying stars. Our Solar System exists in such a cavity. However, this galactic shell (GS 62.1+0.2-18) is 30,000 light years from Earth and measures 1,100 by 520 light years across. It appears so large on the sky that you could line 8 full moons across it. The bright yellow dots are clusters of young, massive stars in the foreground. The Very Large Array (VLA) and the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) traced, in detail, the cool gas in our Galaxy (colored purple, blue and green). The image also overlays radio emission of hot gas (colored orange) and heated dust, imaged in infrared by the Midcourse Space Experiment satellite (colored red).
| Technical Details | |
|---|---|
| Telescope | VLA; GBT; Midcourse Space Experiment |
| Band | -; - |
| Date | -; - |
| Center | RA: 19:49:00, Dec: 26:26:60 |
| Field of View | 360 x 240 arcminutes |
