Before I say anything, I want you to look at this picture and try to make something out of it.... Okay I will give you a little hint, it has something to do with a superhero or a god.
Give up?.....It's Thor's helmet! Do you see it now? Well, coincidentally that is what this cosmic cloud is called. The other name for it, however, is NGC 2359, but let's stick with Thor's Helmet.
This cloud is up to 30 light years across..... 1 light year is about 6 trillion miles..... so that means 30 light years is about 180 trillion miles........ THAT'S HUGE!! That's like the distance from the Earth to the Moon times around 150,000,000!!!!! What?! It's one thing to say 180 trillion miles but it's another to actually understand that. Well, this structure would be classified as an interstellar bubble. What that means is that there is a massive star in the center of this cloud, which in this one is the Wolf-Rayet star, and the solar wind that is produced from it basically sweeps away or pushes the molecular cloud. Actually, this star is about to become a supernova, which means that soon it is going to blow up. Thankfully, this star is no where near our solar system. If it were even 100 light years away, it would probably not affect our solar system but anything closer, and our whole entire solar system would be annihilated! But luckily the closest star to Earth that will be going into a supernova soon, in terms of star lives, is 640 light years away from us. Other things about this cloud is the beautiful colors that it is producing are due to the oxygen atoms becoming excited.
Just to think how big our galaxy or even space is, is absolutely.... if I say so myself, is impossible. It is just amazing, truly amazing. I will stop here before I overload your brain because I think I just overloaded mine. See you later!
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