Mira, Omicron Ceti, Anatomy of a Shooting Star
Image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer. The star, called Mira, is traveling at 130 kilometers per second, or 291,000 miles per hour. As it hurls along, it sheds material that will be recycled into new stars, planets and possibly even life. In this image, Mira is moving from left to right. It is visible as the pinkish dot in the bulb shape at right. The yellow dot below is a foreground star. Mira is traveling so fast that it's creating a bow shock, or build-up of gas, in front of it, as can be seen here. A bow shock forms ahead of the star in the direction of its motion. Gas in the bow shock is heated and then mixes with the cool hydrogen gas in the wind that is blowing off Mira. This heated hydrogen gas then flows around behind the star, forming a wake. This image consists of data captured by both the far- and near-ultraviolet detectors on the Galaxy Evolution Explorer between November 18 and December 15, 2006. It has a total exposure time of about 3 hours.
Size: 4530px × 2310px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: anatomy, astronomical, astronomy, body, bow, celestial, ceti, deep, evolution, explorer, galaxy, galex, heavenly, image, mira, mission, object, omicron, science, shock, shooting, sky, space, star, ultraviolet
