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Vela is bordered by Antlia and Pyxis to the north, Puppis to the northwest, Carina to the south and southwest, and Centaurus to the east. Covering 500 square degrees, it ranks 32nd of the 88 modern constellations in size. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "Vel". [2]
NGC 3261 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Vela. The galaxy lies about 110 million light years away from Earth based on redshift, which means, given its apparent dimensions, that NGC 3261 is approximately 130,000 light years across. [1] It was discovered by John Herschel on March 15, 1836. [3]
The first Vela Hotel pair was launched on 17 October 1963, [3] one week after the Partial Test Ban Treaty went into effect, and the last in 1965. They had a design life of six months, but were only actually shut down after five years. Advanced Vela pairs were launched in 1967, 1969, and 1970.
HR 3562 (HD 76566) is a visual binary consisting of a bluish-white hued variable star and a Sun-like secondary star in the southern constellation of Vela. It has the variable-star designation IY Velorum (abbreviated to IY Vel). With an apparent magnitude of 6.26, the brighter primary is near the limit for naked eye visibility.
A diagram of a typical nautical sextant, a tool used in celestial navigation to measure the angle between two objects viewed by means of its optical sight. Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space or on the ...
NGC 3132 (also known as the Eight-Burst Nebula, [2] the Southern Ring Nebula, [2] or Caldwell 74) is a bright and extensively studied planetary nebula in the constellation Vela. Its distance from Earth is estimated at 613 pc or 2,000 light-years .
Two very similar distances are indicated on the SIMBAD database: 3.086 ± 0.617 kpc (~10,100 ly) and approximately 3050 pc (~9,950 ly). [5]The apparent size of the nebula is 0.350 ′ × 0.315, which, given the distance of 3,086 ± 617 pc and through simple calculation, equates to an actual size of 1.02 ± 0.20 al × 0 .92 ± 0.18 ly.
The Vela supernova remnant includes NGC 2736. Viewed from Earth, the Vela supernova remnant overlaps the Puppis A supernova remnant, which is four times more distant. Both the Puppis and Vela remnants are among the largest and brightest features in the X-ray sky. The Vela supernova remnant is one of the closest known to us.