Located approximately 6,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, WR 134 is an extremely massive and luminous Wolf-Rayet star embedded inside a delicate, glowing bubble of blown-off gas.
Wolf-Rayet stars represent a brief, violent evolutionary phase in the lives of the universe's most massive stars (typically starting at over 20 times the mass of our Sun). WR 134 has shed its outer hydrogen atmosphere through incredibly intense stellar winds traveling at millions of miles per hour. These powerful winds collide with the surrounding interstellar medium, sweeping up surrounding gas and carving out the stunning, crescent-like ionized bubble highlighted in glowing oxygen (OIII) and hydrogen (Hα) emission lines.
Located approximately 6,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, WR 134 is an extremely massive and luminous Wolf-Rayet star embedded inside a delicate, glowing bubble of blown-off gas.
Wolf-Rayet stars represent a brief, violent evolutionary phase in the lives of the universe's most massive stars (typically starting at over 20 times the mass of our Sun). WR 134 has shed its outer hydrogen atmosphere through incredibly intense stellar winds traveling at millions of miles per hour. These powerful winds collide with the surrounding interstellar medium, sweeping up surrounding gas and carving out the stunning, crescent-like ionized bubble highlighted in glowing oxygen (OIII) and hydrogen (Hα) emission lines.