NGC6888, a Crescent nebula in X-rays
Minimum credit line: Image courtesy of J.A. Toalá, M.A. Guerrero, Y.H. Chu et al. and ESA. (for details, see Conditions of Use).
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| About this Image |
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The Crescent Nebula in Cygnus (NGC 6888) is a circumstellar bubble blown by the stellar wind of the Wolf-Rayet star WR 136. The stellar wind is itself shock-heated up to X-ray-emitting temperatures, producing the so-called hot bubble. Taking advantage of the unprecedented sensitivity of the XMM EPIC cameras, this picture provides us with an impressive view of the diffuse hot gas (blue) inside the Crescent Nebula. This hot gas is confined inside the ionised nebular material, as depicted by the emission in the optical lines of H-alpha (red) and [O III] (green) which tells us where is the bulk nebular material and regions of interaction with the surrounding interstellar medium, respectively. The Crescent Nebula is located in the constellation of Cygnus, exactly at a location in the sky that has not been accesible to XMM-Newton until very recently. We waited and waited patiently for more than 10 years until the precession of the orbit of XMM-Newton moved this patch of the sky within its range. We thank Don Goldman for providing the narrow-band optical images
Investigator(s): Toalá, J.A., Guerrero, M.A., Chu, Y.-H., Arthur, S.J., Tafoya, D., & Gruendl, R.A.
| For More Information |
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- Read the Journal article
- Detailed description of this image
- Query XSA archive for XMM-Newton data in the field of NGC6888
- Astronomical database entries for NGC6888;
- Query NED for more images about NGC6888
- Query SIMBAD for more NGC6888 data
- For unfamiliar terms, visit the XMM-Newton Astronomical Glossary
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