Runaway Star Creates Stunning Dust Shockwave | Space Photos & Infrared Astronomy, NASA WISE Telescope | Space.com

Runaway Star Creates Stunning Dust Shockwave | Space Photos & Infrared Astronomy, NASA WISE Telescope | Space.com: "A huge star ejected from a binary system has been photographed slamming headlong through a barrier of cosmic dust, creating a shockwave that shines in brilliant yellow in infrared views.

The star, called Zeta Ophiuchi, is a stellar behemoth with about 20 times the mass of our sun and would be 65,000 times brighter if it weren't surrounded by a thick blanket of dust. It is about 4 million years old and is 460 light-years away from Earth. The star is zooming through space at a whopping 54,000 mph (nearly 87,000 kph), according to NASA scientists.

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, called WISE, caught the massive star plowing through thick dust to create what scientists call a 'bow shock' – a shockwave that precedes stars as they move through space much like the ripple raised by the front of a boat traveling through water."