WR124: Stellar Fireball
Some stars explode in slow motion. Rare, massive
Wolf-Rayet stars are so tumultuous and hot they are
disintegrating right before our telescopes.
Glowing gas globs each over 30 times more massive
than the Earth are being expelled by a violent
stellar wind.
Wolf-Rayet star
WR124, visible near the image center,
is thus creating the surrounding nebula known as
M1-67. Why this star has been slowly
blowing itself apart over the past
10,000 years remains unclear.
WR124 is 15,000 light-years away towards the constellation of Sagitta.