NGC 2736: Pencil Nebula

NGC 2736. Image source: [1]

Despite the apparent calm and static beauty of a starry night, the Universe is far from a quiet place. Stars are born and die in an endless cycle, sometimes the death of a star can give rise to unequaled beauty images in which the material is expelled into space forming strange structures in the sky.

The remains of a star that exploded thousands of years ago create an abstract image in our galaxy, as seen in the photo obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope of the Pencil Nebula. Known as NGC 2736, the Pencil Nebula is part of the remnant of the Vela supernova, discovered by Sir John Herschel in 1840 and whose linear form has given it that popular name. The shape of the nebula suggests that it is part of a collision front of a supernova that encountered a region of dense gas, which has caused the nebula to shine.

The explosion of a supernova left a pulsar in the core of the Vela region. Based on the rate at which this object is slowing down its rotation, astronomers believe the explosion could have happened 11,000 years ago. The star that died as a supernova could have been 250 times brighter than Venus and would be visible to observers in the Southern Hemisphere in broad daylight. If the age of the event is correct, this would mean that the initial explosion pushed material from the star to 35 million km per hour. As the supernova remnant has been expanding, the speed of its filaments has been decreasing.

This nebula is a small part of a huge remnant left over after a supernova explosion that took place about 11 000 years ago. Image credit: NASA

The Pencil Nebula is about 0.75 light-years and moves through the interstellar medium at about 650,000 kilometers per hour. Surprisingly, although it is at a distance of about 800 light years from Earth.

More details here: NGC 2736 

  European Southern Observatory (ESO)