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Back The Crescent Nebula

The Crescent Nebula


Depicts: NGC 6888, The Crescent Nebula, WR 136, IRAS 20102+3812
Copyright: Brian D. Moore, Jeff Hester, Paul Scowen, Reginald Dufour and NASA

The Hubble telescope has snapped a view of a stellar demolition zone in our Milky Way Galaxy: a massive star, nearing the end of its life, tearing apart the shell of surrounding material it blew off 250,000 years ago with its strong stellar wind. The shell of material, dubbed the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888), surrounds the "hefty," aging star WR 136, an extremely rare and short-lived class of super-hot star called a Wolf-Rayet.
Last Update: 1 September 2019
7-Mar-2026 06:52 UT

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