Friday, July 18, 2008

Puppis




Psychedelic Puppis




Credits: ESA/ XMM-Newton/ EPIC (adapted from R. Saxton et al.)

"This map of our galaxy shows all the objects that were detected in the XMM-Newton slew survey, one of which was the nova V598 Puppis. The plot is colour-coded such that sources of a lower energy are red and those with a higher energy are blue. Also, the brighter the source, the larger it appears on the map. The plot is in galactic coordinates (the centre of the plot corresponds to the centre of the Milky Way)."


The name Puppis, or more precisely V598 Puppis, makes me giggle because of the associations I get in my mother tongue language Norwegian. In Norwegian "tit" is "pupp" and the name sounds more like tit candy of some sort in Norwegian. I'm sorry, but that is how it is. Combined with the psychedelic presentation of our galaxy, the Milky Way, it simply became too much for me. Hehehe. You should know I work real hard to NEVER EVER GROW UP!

Seriously, they discovered a new star that had managed to hide from from all telescopes and millions of unaided eyes that continuously sweep the sky, until now when the fabulous XMM Newton telescope finally picked it up. It is presented in BLUE! :-)




Credits: Contours: ESA/ XMM-Newton/ EPIC (adapted from R. Saxton et al.), Background: NASA/ ESA/ Hubble/ DSS

V598 Puppis, the star that everyone missed.





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