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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.   
      
                                  2024 January 9   
      The image shows a starfield with an oval shaped green-tinged nebula in   
       the center. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.   
      
                                   Thor's Helmet   
                      Image Credit & Copyright: Ritesh Biswas   
      
      Explanation: Thor not only has his own day (Thursday), but a helmet in   
      the heavens. Popularly called Thor's Helmet, NGC 2359 is a hat-shaped   
      cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages. Heroically sized even for a   
      Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the   
      cosmic head-covering is more like an interstellar bubble, blown with a   
      fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center. Known   
      as a Wolf-Rayet star, the central star is an extremely hot giant   
      thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution. NGC 2359 is   
      located about 15,000 light-years away toward the constellation of the   
      Great Overdog. This remarkably sharp image is a mixed cocktail of data   
      from narrowband filters, capturing not only natural looking stars but   
      details of the nebula's filamentary structures. The star in the center   
      of Thor's Helmet is expected to explode in a spectacular supernova   
      sometime within the next few thousand years.   
      
                          Tomorrow's picture: open space   
        __________________________________________________________________   
      
          Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)   
               NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.   
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                         A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,   
                              NASA Science Activation   
                                & Michigan Tech. U.   
      
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