Astronomers love to give evocative names to the objects they observe. That’s why we hear about things like the Ring Nebula and the Cat’s-Eye Nebula. Sure, the things they describe look like the name, although the monickers don’t always have much to do with the intrinsic nature of the object.

I recently ran across a really exciting-looking image of a bubble of gas being blown out by a Wolf-Rayet star. WRs are extremely hot (25,000-50,000 K), energetic stars that blast their outer layers away at thousands and thousands of miles per second. incredibly hot (25,000-50,000K) and expel their outer layers of gas at tremendous velocities (thousands of kilometers per second). It’s about 15,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Canis Major (the Big Dog). But, because it’s so bright and energetic, we can see it very nicely.