Stellar interlopers caught speeding through space
Resembling comets streaking across the sky, these four speedy stars are plowing through regions of dense interstellar gas and creating brilliant arrowhead structures and trailing tails of glowing gas.
These bright arrowheads, or bow shocks, can be seen in these four images taken with NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The bow shocks form when the stars' powerful stellar winds, streams of matter flowing from the stars, slam into surrounding dense gas. The phenomenon is similar to that seen when a speeding boat pushes through water on a lake.
Credit:
NASA, ESA and R. Sahai (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
About the Image
NASA press release
NASA caption
NASA caption
| Id: | opo0903a |
| Type: | Collage |
| Release date: | 7 January 2009, 18:20 |
| Size: | 2400 x 3000 px |
About the Object
| Name: | Stellar Bow Shocks |
| Type: | • Milky Way : Star |
Colours & filters
| Band | Wavelength | Telescope |
| Optical V |
606 nm | Hubble Space Telescope ACS |
| Infrared I |
814 nm | Hubble Space Telescope ACS |
