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Making Waves Stellar Style

Zeta Ophiuchi is making waves in its neighborhood. The star is located 370 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus.
It is six times hotter, eight times wider, twenty times more massive and 80,000 times brighter than our sun.
Zeta Ophiuchi would be ranked among the brightest stars if not shrouded by cosmic dust.

This massive star is moving fast enough (54,000 mph) to break the sound barrier, creating “bow shocks” in surrounding material.
Bow shocks in space are similar to the wake caused by boats and are usually visible when two areas of gas or dust collide.
Zeta Ophiuchi produces very strong winds of hot gas particles that collide with the surrounding interstellar dust clouds.

Normally bow shocks can be seen in visible light, but Zeta Ophiuchi’s dust veil only allows NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to view the longer infrared wavelengths.
The red areas in the image are the “bow shocks” and have a slightly longer wavelength than the fine dust filaments shown in green.

source:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/...hp?id=PIA16604