Charlie Brown would certainly be proud of this “great pumpkin.”
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has found a massive nebula in deep space that “looks like a celestial jack-o’-lantern.” The study’s researchers have given it the nickname “Jack-o’-lantern Nebula,” apropos for Halloween.
It’s likely that a star, known as an O-type star, approximately 15 to 20 times heavier than our Sun, is “responsible for sculpting this cosmic pumpkin,” NASA JPL said in a statement on its website.
This infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space telescope shows a cloud of gas and dust carved out by a massive star. A drawing overlaid on the image reveals why researchers nicknamed this region the “Jack-o’-lantern Nebula.” Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
HUBBLE TELESCOPE SPOTS ‘GHOSTLY FACE’ IN SPACE
The GIF was released on Wednesday, with an outline being added around the nebula.
Spitzer detects infrared light, so it was able to see the star “glowing like a candle at the center of a hollowed-out pumpkin,” NASA continued. Infrared light is widely assumed to be invisible to the human eye.
“A recent study of the region suggests that the powerful outflow of radiation and particles from the star likely swept the surrounding dust and gas outward, creating deep gouges in this cloud, which is known as a nebula,” NASA continued.
The study has been published in the Astrophysical Journal, NASA added.
Earlier this week, Hubble Telescope spotted two galaxies colliding into one another that created “a ghostly face” in space.
