Posted on Jul 29, 2021

APOD: 2021 July 29 - The Tulip and Cygnus X 1

Maj William W. 'Bill' Price

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Good morning, Rallypoint. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is titled "The Tulip and Cygnus X-1." One of the more prominent constellations visible throughout the night in the northern hemisphere is Cygnus (the Swan). Together with Lyra (the Lyre) and Aquilla (the Eagle), the brightest stars in each from the Summer Triangle Asterism. I grew up knowing it as the Navigator's Triangle.

The neck of Cygnus extends into the middle of the Navigator's Triangle, and that is where you find the subject of today's APOD. The aptly named Tulip Nebula was first cataloged by Stuart Sharpless in 1959. Assigning different colors to the different wavelengths of light emitted from the Tulip allows us to see the structure of the nebula based on the presence of sulfur (red), hydrogen (green), and oxygen (blue). Do you see the shock wave just above the Tulip? That marks the approximate location of Cygnus X-1, a galactic source of X-rays and the first such source widely accepted to be a black hole. It was discovered in 1964 using instruments carried aloft by a sounding rocket launched from White Sands Missile Range (New Mexico). The shock wave is caused by suspected particle jets along the axis of rotation of the black hole.

The Tulip Nebula lies about 6,000 light years from Earth. Cygnus X-1 is a bit further away (6,070 light years).

APOD: 2021 July 29 - The Tulip and Cygnus X 1

Posted from apod.nasa.gov

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LTC Stephen F.

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Thank you my friend Maj William W. 'Bill' Price for posting the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) for Thursday, July 29, 2021 entitled "The Tulip and Cygnus X-1."

Image: The Tulip and Cygnus X-1 - Image Credit & Copyright - Carlos Uriarte

APOD Background
"Explanation: This tall telescopic field of view looks out along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the nebula rich constellation Cygnus the Swan. Popularly called the Tulip Nebula, the brightest glowing cloud of interstellar gas and dust above center is also found in the 1959 catalog by astronomer Stewart Sharpless as Sh2-101. Nearly 70 light-years across the complex and beautiful Tulip Nebula blossoms about 8,000 light-years away, shown in a Hubble palette image that maps the glow of the nebula's sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen ions into red, green, and blue colors. Ultraviolet radiation from young energetic stars at the edge of the Cygnus OB3 association, including O star HDE 227018, ionizes the atoms and powers the emission from the Tulip Nebula. Also in the field of view is microquasar Cygnus X-1, one of the strongest X-ray sources in planet Earth's sky. Driven by powerful jets from a black hole accretion disk, its fainter bluish curved shock front is only just visible though, directly above the cosmic Tulip's petals near the top of the frame.'

This towering blossom brings to mind
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LTC Stephen F.

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