AAO image reference AAT 33a. « Previous || Next »
Top left is NE. Image width is about 36 arc min
Image and text © 2000-2002, Anglo-Australian Observatory, photograph by David Malin.
At the centre of this nebula is a small group of extremely hot stars which have stellar winds blowing from their surfaces with velocities that approach 4000 kilometers per second. These outward flowing streams of energetic particles eventually interact with an almost stationary interstellar medium, releasing much of their energy as a thin spherical shell of luminous material. The hollow structure accounts for the shape we see in the sky. A more detailed image is also available
This nebula is almost 400 light years across, about 100 times the distance from the Sun to the nearest star, and is in the Large Magellanic Cloud(LMC), the closest galaxy to the Milky Way. Almost all the miriads of stars and star clusters here belong to the LMC. Henize 70 can also be be seen in a wider context to the left of our image of the star clouds north of the LMC
Related Images
AAT 33. The Henize 70 nebula in the LMC
UKS 14. The Large Magellanic Cloud
UKS 14a. The eastern end of the Large Magellanic Cloud
UKS 16. Star clouds north of the Large Magellanic Cloud
For details of photographic exposure, search technical table by AAT reference number