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THOR'S HELMET15,000 light-years Thor's Helmet is a rare example of a Wolf-Rayet star. Around 40 times the mass of our Sun, it is young and burning extremely brightly - a blue supergiant - and generates a stellar wind that blasts outwards at millions of kilometres per hour. Burning this brightly and shedding this much material, it is thought that Wolf-Rayet stars are seen in a brief stage of evolution before exploding as a supernova. Credit: Image made in visible light by Jean-Charles Cuillandre for the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corporation. |