Astronomy
The shimmering colors visible in this image, clearly shows the remarkable complexity of the Twin Jet Nebula [also known as PN M2-9]. The image highlights the nebula?s shells and its knots of expanding gas in striking detail.
The glowing and expanding shells of gas visible in this image represent the final stages of life for an old star of low to intermediate mass [However, astronomers have calculated that the nebula was created only 1,200 years ago]. The star has not only ejected its outer layers, but the exposed remnant core is now illuminating these layers, resulting in a spectacular light show.
In this name PN M2-9, the M refers to Rudolph Minkowski, a German-American astronomer who discovered the nebula in 1947. The PN, meanwhile, refers to the fact that M2-9 is a planetary nebula. However, the Twin Jet Nebula is not just any planetary nebula, it is a bipolar nebula.
Ordinary planetary nebulae have one star at their center but bipolar nebulae have two, in a binary star system. Astronomers have found that the two stars in this pair each have around the same mass as the sun, ranging from 0.6 to 1.0 solar masses for the smaller star, and from 1.0 to 1.4 solar masses for its larger companion. The larger star is approaching the end of its days and has already ejected its outer layers of gas into space, whereas its partner is further evolved, and is a small white dwarf.
The characteristic shape of the wings of the Twin Jet Nebula is most likely caused by the motion of the two central stars around each other. It is believed that as the dying star and white dwarf orbit around their common center of mass, the ejected gas from the dying star is pulled into two lobes rather than expanding as a uniform sphere.
Within the wings, starting from the star system and extending horizontally outwards like veins are two faint blue patches. Although these may seem subtle in comparison to the nebula?s rainbow colors, these are actually violent twin jets streaming out into space, at speeds in excess of one million kilometers [621,400 miles] per hour. This is a phenomenon that is another consequence of the binary system at the heart of the nebula. These jets slowly change their orientation, precessing across the lobes as they are directed by the wayward motions of the binary system. Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body.
The two stars at the heart of the nebula, circle one another roughly every 100 years. This rotation not only creates the wings of the butterfly and the two jets, it also allows the white dwarf to strip gas from its larger companion, which then forms a large disc of material around the stars, extending out as far as 15 times the orbit of Pluto
source:- nasa.gov
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Astronomy
The Cosmic Butterfly
The glowing and expanding shells of gas visible in this image represent the final stages of life for an old star of low to intermediate mass [However, astronomers have calculated that the nebula was created only 1,200 years ago]. The star has not only ejected its outer layers, but the exposed remnant core is now illuminating these layers, resulting in a spectacular light show.
In this name PN M2-9, the M refers to Rudolph Minkowski, a German-American astronomer who discovered the nebula in 1947. The PN, meanwhile, refers to the fact that M2-9 is a planetary nebula. However, the Twin Jet Nebula is not just any planetary nebula, it is a bipolar nebula.
Ordinary planetary nebulae have one star at their center but bipolar nebulae have two, in a binary star system. Astronomers have found that the two stars in this pair each have around the same mass as the sun, ranging from 0.6 to 1.0 solar masses for the smaller star, and from 1.0 to 1.4 solar masses for its larger companion. The larger star is approaching the end of its days and has already ejected its outer layers of gas into space, whereas its partner is further evolved, and is a small white dwarf.
The characteristic shape of the wings of the Twin Jet Nebula is most likely caused by the motion of the two central stars around each other. It is believed that as the dying star and white dwarf orbit around their common center of mass, the ejected gas from the dying star is pulled into two lobes rather than expanding as a uniform sphere.
Within the wings, starting from the star system and extending horizontally outwards like veins are two faint blue patches. Although these may seem subtle in comparison to the nebula?s rainbow colors, these are actually violent twin jets streaming out into space, at speeds in excess of one million kilometers [621,400 miles] per hour. This is a phenomenon that is another consequence of the binary system at the heart of the nebula. These jets slowly change their orientation, precessing across the lobes as they are directed by the wayward motions of the binary system. Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body.
The two stars at the heart of the nebula, circle one another roughly every 100 years. This rotation not only creates the wings of the butterfly and the two jets, it also allows the white dwarf to strip gas from its larger companion, which then forms a large disc of material around the stars, extending out as far as 15 times the orbit of Pluto
source:- nasa.gov
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The Cat's eye nebula is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Draco. A nebula is a cloud of dust and gas in space. A nebula is of four types- planetary nebula , reflection nebula , emission nebula and absorption nebula. Cat's nebula can...
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Image taken by Subaru Telescope shows comet -shaped knots lighting up the Helix nebula. A nebula is cloud of gas and dust in space. Some nebulas are regions where new stars are being formed, while others are the remains of dead or dying stars. Nebulas...
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Here we see the spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427, more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it. Both objects, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope are found in the constellation of Sagittarius and lie 15,000...
- The Tarantula Nebula.
The Tarantula Nebula, also known as 30 Doradus is a giant star-forming region, where energy from hot and young stars creates dramatic voids and filaments surrounding by gas. It is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud [LMC] galaxy at a...
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