There’s nothing Russian about the above fantastic featured photo, but what one can be pretty certain about is that it’s darn right fantastic! Dubbed the “red square nebula”, the phenomena was observed after infrared exposures from Earth-based telescopes in Hawaii and California were superimposed revealing a fantastic geometry. Scientists are still not sure how the phenomena can be explained, but so far N.A.S.A. astronomers hypothesize that stars at the heart of the nebula expelled unusual cones of gas at a late stage in their development, which combined with a perfect observation angle formed the square gem we now see. Supporting evidence for the cone hypothesis includes radial spokes in the image that might run along the cone walls.

The Red Square Nebula would look very different from other angles, and astronomers speculate that viewed from other angles its cones would look like the huge rings that we can observe on supernova 1987A.

via N.A.S.A.

 

Enjoyed this article? Join 40,000+ subscribers to the ZME Science newsletter. Subscribe now!