BROWNNOSE
BOOTLICKER
The blue star near the center of this image is Zeta Ophiuchi.(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA )
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This is the sort of story that tickles the delight of the amateur astronomer in all of us. Late Monday afternoon, NASA/JPL sent around a rare picture taken by its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer of a star whose mass is about 20 times that of our sun.
Astronomers say that the star, Zeta Ophiuchi, was given the boot by its former companion, another massive star, sending it hurtling at a clip of 54,000 miles per hour through space dust.
During its space peregrination, the strong winds formed by the star's movement have pushed gas and dust into what is called a bow shock. The material is so compressed that it glows with infrared light, making it visible to WISE. NASA likes the effect to what happens "when a boat speeds through water, pushing a wave in front of it."
