APOD 3.1

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110204.html

Let us begin this ode to a runaway star by noting the size of this stellar juggernaut. Zeta Oph clocks in at 20 times more massive than the sun and 65,000 times more luminous. Zeta Oph would be one of the brighter stars in the sky if it weren't for the obscuration of it by the surrounding interstellar dust. So what makes Zeta Oph so cool, is that it's actually being propelled through space at a speed of 24 kilometers per second. Probably once a star in a binary system, its partner exploded in a supernova thus jetting Zeta Oph onto a never ending path into empty space. The interstellar gas and dust that surrounds this star, though a slight hindrance to our ability to view it in visible light, makes for a very awesome picture in the infrared. The calm green clouds on the outsides of the star, the brighter, hotter red clouds are seen due to teh amounts of ultraviolet radiaion emitted that heats up the clouds, and the yellow clouds of the bow shock. As the stellar wind pushes through all kinds of other interstellar stuff, it compress it causing it to glow so brightly in the infrared.