The Pistol Star: A Brilliant Star in Milky Way's Core
About This Image
One of the intrinsically brightest stars in our galaxy appears as the bright white dot in the center of this image taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) was needed to take the picture, because the star is hidden at the galactic center, behind obscuring dust. NICMOS' infrared vision penetrated the dust to reveal the star, which is glowing with the radiance of 10 million suns. The image also shows one of the most massive stellar eruptions ever seen in space. The radiant star has enough raw power to blow off two expanding shells (magenta) of gas equal to the mass of several of our suns. The largest shell is so big (4 light-years) it would stretch nearly all the way from our Sun to the next nearest star. The outbursts seen by Hubble are estimated to be only 4,000 and 6,000 years old, respectively. Despite such a tremendous mass loss, astronomers estimate the extraordinary star may presently be 100 times more massive than our Sun, and may have started with as much as 200 solar masses of material, but it is violently shedding much of its mass. The star is 25,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Despite its great distance, the star would be visible to the naked eye as a modest 4th magnitude object if it were not for the dust between it and the Earth. This false-colored image is a composite of two separately filtered images taken with the NICMOS, on September 13,1997. The field of view is 4.8 light-years across, at the star's distance of 25,000 light-years. Resolution is 0.075 arc seconds per pixel (picture element).
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Pistol Nebula |
| R.A. Position | 17h 46m 15.19s |
| Dec. Position | -28° 49' 49.0" |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |