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                           Astronomy Picture of the Day   
      
       Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our   
         fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation   
                       written by a professional astronomer.   
      
                                 2026 February 16   
         A star field shows colorful pill-shaped nebula extending from the   
       bottom left toward the upper right. Colors include, from the outside   
      in, red, green, and blue. Please see the explanation for more detailed   
                                   information.   
      
                   Unexplained Shocks Around a White Dwarf Star   
               Image Credit: ESO, K. I+ékiewicz & S. Scaringi et al.;   
                Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)   
      
      Explanation: How is RXJ0528+2838 creating such shock waves? A recently   
      discovered white dwarf star, the farther left of the two largest white   
      spots, RXJ0528+2838, was found 730 light-years away from Earth. Most   
      stars, when done fusing nuclei in their cores for energy, become red   
      giant stars, the cores of which live on as faint dense white dwarfs   
      that slowly cool down for the rest of time. White dwarfs are so dense   
      that the only thing that stops them from collapsing further is quantum   
      mechanics. In about 5 billion years, our Sun will become a white dwarf,   
      too. The featured image, obtained with the European Southern   
      ObservatoryCÇÖs Very Large Telescope, shows unexplained bow shocks around   
      RXJ0528+2838, similar to the bow wave of water around a fast-moving   
      ship. Astronomers donCÇÖt yet know what is powering these shocks, which   
      have existed for at least 1,000 years. The red, green and blue colors   
      represent trace amounts of glowing hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen gas.   
      
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