Constellation: Cassiopeia
Distance: 11,000 light years
Magnitude: 10
Actual Size: 10 light years across
Visual Size: 15 x 8 arcminutes
Other Designations: Sharpless 162 (Sh2-162)
The Bubble Nebula is one of my favourite objects in the night sky. A Emission nebula in Cassiopeia, the shape of this object is caused by the stellar wind from a massive hot Wolf-Rayet star. The star itself is 40 times the size of our sun and is reponsible for a stellar wind moving at 2000 kilometers per second. The rest of the red glow is from a cloud of gas surrounding the bubble itself.