The violent temper of Wolff-Rayet (1 photo)

This composite image of the nebula M1-67 around the star WR 124 was created by combining data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope on September 9, 2013.



The object, with a mass of approximately 20 solar masses, is located in the constellation Sagittarius at a distance of 21,000 ± 2,000 light-years and is ejecting material at a speed of 1,400–2,000 km/s. WR 124 is 150,000 times more luminous than the Sun, and its surface temperature is 44,700 degrees Celsius, almost 7.7 times hotter than the Sun.

Stars with such high temperatures and luminosities are classified as Wolf-Rayet stars, named after the astronomers Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet, who were the first to note and describe the spectral features of such stars in 1867.

The orange-brown "wisps" are gas clumps with the mass of tens of Earths, illuminated by ultraviolet radiation from their parent star. WR 124 is approximately 8.6 million years old, meaning it could go supernova at any moment.