NGC 3199 (Gum 28, RCW 48, Smile Nebula) in Carina

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Hanging out some 11 736 light years away in the southern constellation of Carina, NGC 3199 is classed as a diffuse nebula embedded with a Wolf-Rayet star. Near the center of the ring is a Wolf-Rayet star, a massive, hot, short-lived star that generates an intense stellar wind. The nebula is about 75 light-years across.

The Wolf-Rayet nebula NGC 3199 has a highly asymmetric morphology, with a very bright hemisphere near the exciting star HD 89358 and a much fainter and more extended other hemisphere. This nebula is modeled in terms of the distorted bubble produced by a moving star blowing a strong stellar wind into a surrounding uniform interstellar medium. This model is fitted to the morphology and observed kinematic data. The exciting star appears to be moving at about 60 km/s into local interstellar gas of density of about 10/cu cm, and has a mass-loss rate of about 0.000027 solar mass/yr. This latter mass-loss rate is in excellent agreement with observed mass-loss rates from Wolf-Rayet stars.

Brief adapted information: The Wolf-Rayet nebula NGC 3199 - an interstellar snow plough? (Dyson, J. E.; Ghanbari, J.)

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