NASA's James Webb Space Telescope obtained images of the Ring Nebula, one of the best-known examples of a planetary nebula. Much like the Southern Ring Nebula, one of Webb's first images, the Ring Nebula displays intricate ...
Astronomy
Aug 21, 2023
1
444
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has recorded breathtaking new images of the iconic Ring Nebula, also known as Messier 57.
Astronomy
Aug 3, 2023
1
165
The glowing nebula IC 2220, nicknamed the Toby Jug Nebula owing to its resemblance to an old English drinking vessel, is a rare astronomical find. This reflection nebula, located about 1200 light-years away in the direction ...
Astronomy
Jul 13, 2023
0
33
A portion of the open cluster NGC 6530 appears as a roiling wall of smoke studded with stars in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 6530 is a collection of several thousand stars lying around 4,350 light-years ...
Astronomy
Dec 19, 2022
0
32
From high atop a mountain in the Chilean Andes, the Dark Energy Camera has snapped more than one million exposures of the southern sky. The images have captured around 2.5 billion astronomical objects, including galaxies ...
Astronomy
Oct 4, 2022
3
71
Astronomers have performed an astro-photometric study of an open cluster known as Messier 37. One of the main results of this research is the finding that Messier 37 hosts a large and evolved planetary nebula. The study was ...
Some stars save the best for last.
Astronomy
Jul 12, 2022
0
76
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency), will soon reveal unprecedented and detailed views of the universe with the upcoming release of its first full-color ...
Astronomy
Jul 8, 2022
0
100
Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), astronomers have observed a young planetary nebula known as IC 4997. Results of the observational campaign, presented in a paper published May 12 on ...
An energetic outburst from an infant star streaks across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This stellar tantrum—produced by an extremely young star in the earliest phase of formation—consists of an ...
Astronomy
Mar 14, 2022
0
41
A planetary nebula is an emission nebula consisting of a glowing shell of gas and plasma formed by certain types of stars when they die. The name originated in the 18th century because of their similarity in appearance to giant planets when viewed through small optical telescopes, and is unrelated to the planets of the solar system. They are a relatively short-lived phenomenon, lasting a few tens of thousands of years, compared to a typical stellar lifetime of several billion years.
At the end of the star's life, during the red giant phase, the outer layers of the star are expelled via pulsations and strong stellar winds. Without these opaque layers, the remaining core of the star shines brightly and is very hot. The ultraviolet radiation emitted by this core ionises the ejected outer layers of the star which radiate as a planetary nebula.
Planetary nebulae are important objects in astronomy because they play a crucial role in the chemical evolution of the galaxy, returning material to the interstellar medium which has been enriched in heavy elements and other products of nucleosynthesis (such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and calcium). In other galaxies, planetary nebulae may be the only objects observable enough to yield useful information about chemical abundances.
In recent years, Hubble Space Telescope images have revealed many planetary nebulae to have extremely complex and varied morphologies. About a fifth are roughly spherical, but the majority are not spherically symmetric. The mechanisms which produce such a wide variety of shapes and features are not yet well understood, but binary central stars, stellar winds and magnetic fields may all play a role.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
