⚪ Gang — 50 Cassiopeiae
A crisp white A-type star near the pole. Gang (“the Shaft”) belongs to the Chinese asterism Huagai, the Emperor’s canopy. Once mistaken for a nebula, now a settled main-sequence star at 162 ly.
IAU Dec 2025.
#Gang #ChineseAstronomy
🔵 Shangwei (少衛) — HIP 29997
A snow-white A-type star in Camelopardalis. Shangwei (“Imperial Guard”) belongs to the ancient Chinese Purple Forbidden Palace near the pole. Rapid rotator, 10,000 K, 175 ly, circumpolar.
IAU Dec 2025.
#Shangwei #ChineseAstronomy
🔵 Heng – ν Cen
Bright blue-white star in #Centaurus, mag 3.38.
🌡️ 22,400 K | 11.8 M☉ | 8.2 R☉ | 474 ly
Name Héng (衡), an ancient Chinese term likely meaning “balance bar,” from the 2nd-century BCE super-constellation Kulou.
A pulsating B-type subgiant.
#IAUStarNames #ChineseAstronomy
⚪️ Shēngōng (神宫) – HIP 83100
A white giant star in Scorpius, once known in Chinese uranography as the Divine Palace, part of the Tail of the Azure Dragon.
Its soft Milky Way glow was seen as a sacred hall among the stars.
IAU-Adopted(2025).
#Shengong #ChineseAstronomy #WGSN #CulturalAstronomy
A composite X-ray image of supernova remnant RCW 86, created from data by the XMM-Newton and Chandra telescopes. The image shows the expanding shell of material in blue, green, and red hues representing different X-ray energies. This remnant is believed to be the debris from a supernova observed by Chinese astronomers in 185 AD, making it potentially the earliest recorded supernova. The image showcases the vast scale and beauty of cosmic events, located approximately 8,200 light-years away in our Milky Way galaxy.
Astronomy Picture from 28/09/2006
RCW 86: Historical Supernova Remnant
Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060928.html
#SupernovaRemnant #RCW86 #AncientAstronomy #ChineseAstronomy #XMMNewton #ChandraXray #SpaceExploration #MilkyWay #Supernova #Astrophysics #Astronomy
A stunning deep-space image of RCW 86, the remnant of a Type Ia supernova first observed by Chinese astronomers in 185 AD. This nebula, larger than the full moon in the sky, shows intricate filaments of gas ionized by the expanding shockwave of the ancient stellar explosion. Located 8,000 light-years away, its red and blue hues showcase the remnants of a thermonuclear detonation on a white dwarf star.
Astronomy Picture from 28/05/2022
RCW 86: Historical Supernova Remnant
Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220528.html
#RCW86 #SupernovaRemnant #TypeIaSupernova #AncientSupernova #ChineseAstronomy #Space #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Nebula #DeepSpace #MilkyWay #Stargazing #Cosmology
