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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]
The twin spacecraft, Vela 6A and 6B, were launched on 8 April 1970. Data from the Vela 6 satellites were used to look for correlations between gamma-ray bursts and X-ray events. At least two good candidates were found, GB720514 and GB740723. The X-ray detectors failed on Vela 6B on 27 January 1972 and on Vela 6A on 12 March 1972.
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]
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.
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.
Gamma ray and optical (visible light) light curves for the pulsar, adapted from Spolon et al. (2019) [3]. Vela is the brightest pulsar (at radio frequencies) in the sky and spins 11 times per second [4] (i.e. a period of 89.33 milliseconds—the shortest known at the time of its discovery) and the remnant from the supernova explosion is estimated to be travelling outwards at 1,200 km/s (750 mi ...