Photo: NRAO/AUI/NSF, K. Golap, M. Goss, NASA's Wide Field Survey Explorer
Photo: Tracy Colson
Holy (Space) Cow! Forget the Space Whale, astronomers have spotted something way cooler: the Manatee nebula!
When scientists took a new image of the W50 nebula in the constellation Aquila, a remnant of a supernova 10,000 years ago, someone at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory remarked that it looks like a manatee floating on its back.
The name stuck, and the W50 nebula is being renamed during a ceremony today at the Florida Manatee Festival in Crystal River, Fla.: Link