Residing in the southern constellation of Ara, this incredible dust cloud is at home in Ara OB1 association, which covers a full degree of sky. Some 4000 light years away in the disk of our Galaxy, NGC 6188 sprawls across the edge of an expanding bubble of gas that could be as much as 300 light years wide. Emission nebula NGC 6188′s fueling/illuminating source is open star cluster NGC 6193 buried deep inside its obscuring dust. Two nearby O-type giants, HD 150135 and HD 150136, cast their light upon dark space and reveal both the emission and the dust in fascinating detail. Roughly three million years old, NGC 6193 began forming and evolving unusually close binary stars. HD 150136 is one such star – an incredible binary whose O3 and O6V stars are so close they nearly touch each other. As their stellar winds combine, huge amounts of x-rays are created. The gentle red glow you see is hydrogen gas, heated by the bright stars and framed by molecular cloud which may have originated in the atmospheres of cooler stars and supernova ejecta.
For a full resolution version of the central part, click here
(Text from Universe Today)
|