NRAO: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

About this Image

A nearby superbubble recently discovered with the 100 m Green Bank Telescope (GBT) is shown as a false color image. Green color is neutral hydrogen detected by its 21 cm radio emission, purple -- ionized hydrogen detected by its optical emission, white -- where there are matching amounts of both neutral and ionized hydrogen. The diagonal green stripe at the bottom results from a stretch of cosmic dust known as the Great Rift of the Milky Way, blocking all the light behind it including the superbubble's ionized hydrogen emission, while the radio emission is not hindered by dust. Such superbubbles are known to be blown by powerful stellar winds and supernovae occuring in star clusters in arms of both our and other spiral galaxies. It took approximately 30 million years and the energy of about 100 supernovae to create this one, which is more than 3 kpc high and is located about 7 kpc from the Sun and 4 kpc from the Galactic center. It is currently at the latest stages of its development, its expansion is stopped and its walls are starting to decompose.

Investigator(s):  Yurii Pidopryhora, Felix J. Lockman, Joseph C. Shields

Alternate Resolutions

Help

This image is available in the following downloadable versions:

• 425 x 600 color JPEG
• 750 x 1058 color JPEG
• 2400 x 1701 color TIFF

If you would like to obtain a higher resolution version of this image, please contact Pat Smiley.

For More Information

• Read the Press Release
• Read the Journal article
• Up one level for more info on Galactic_Halo
• For unfamiliar terms, visit the NRAO Radio Astronomy Glossary

Technical Data

Telescope	GBT
Date of Observation	2005-08-22
Type of Observation	Spectral Line Observations
Center of Image	RA: 17:45:31.00, Dec: 05:09:3.00 (J2000)
Field of View	25.0000 x 35.0000 degrees
Technical Caption	HI image: About 250,000 GBT HI spectra integrated over 60-160 km/s LSR. The integration covers all the tangent point velocities at these longitudes. The intensity scale has been multiplied by sine of Galactic latitude to compress the dynamic range and show structures more clearly. Angular resolution is about 9 arcmin. The noise has been removed in areas not related to the bubble. The original GBT HI survey was used for the most of the map, but data from the lower resolution Leiden-Dwingeloo survey by Hartmann & Burton (1997) were used to fill the space around the edges. H-alpha image: integrated over 55-95 km/s LSR, as observed with the Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper (data of WHAM survey by Haffner et al. 2003 interpolated and imaged by Yurii Pidopryhora). Angular resolution is about 1 degree. Imaging and matching of coordinate systems was done in AIPS++ by Yurii Pidopryhora. Please refer to Pidopryhora, Lockman and Shields paper submitted to ApJ for more scientific information on the superbubble.



Astronomical database entries for Superbubble
• Query SIMBAD for more Superbubble data

---

SEARCH THE IMAGE GALLERY To search the Image Gallery for other images of Superbubble, click the Submit button. Object Name Show Results As: Thumbnails List To search the Image Gallery for similar images, click the Submit button. Category Sub-Category Telescope Mode Show Results As: Any Galaxy AGN Galactic_Sources Solar_System Miscellaneous Telescopes Historical Any Black Holes Galactic Center Galactic Halo Planetary Nebula Pulsars/Neutron Stars Supernova Supernova Remnants Stars Star Forming Regions Any GBT VLA VLBA ALMA 12 m 140 ft Any Continuum Spectral Line Thumbnails List For more search options, please use our Advanced Search form.