A cosmic garden sprinkler

Esahubble_potw1241a_1024

esahubble_potw1241a October 8th, 2012

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA 

The Universe is filled with mysterious objects. Many of them are as strange as they are beautiful. Among these, planetary nebulae are probably one of the most fascinating objects to behold in the night sky. No other type of object has such a large variety of shapes and structures. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope provides us this week with a striking image of Hen 3-1475, a planetary nebula in the making. Planetary nebulae the name arises because most of these objects resembled a planet when they were first discovered through early telescopes are expanding, glowing shells of gas coming from Sun-like stars at the ends of their lives. They glow brightly because of the radiation that comes from a hot, compact core, which remains after the outer envelope is ejected, and is powerful enough to make these gossamer shells shine. Each planetary nebula is complex and unique. Hen 3-1475 is a great example of a planetary nebula in the making, a phase which is known to astronomers as a protoplanetary or preplanetary nebula. Since the central star has not yet blown away its complete shell, the star is not hot enough to ionise the shell of gas and so the nebula does not shine. Rather, we see the expelled gas thanks to light reflected off it. When the stars envelope is fully ejected, it will begin to glow and become a planetary nebula. Hen 3-1475 is located in the constellation of Sagittarius around 18 000 light-years away from us. The central star is more than 12 000 times as luminous as our Sun. Its most characteristic feature is a thick torus of dust around the central star and two S-shaped jets that are emerging from the pole regions of the central star. These jets are long outflows of fast-moving gas travelling at hundreds of kilometres per second. The formation of these bipolar jets has puzzled astronomers for a long time. How can a spherical star form these complex structures? Recent studies suggest that the objects characteristic shape and the large velocity outflow is created by a central source that ejects streams of gas in opposite directions and precesses once every thousand years. It is like an enormous, slowly rotating garden sprinkler in the middle of the sky. No wonder astronomers also have nicknamed this object the Garden-sprinkler Nebula. This picture was taken with Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3, which provides significantly higher resolution than previous observations made with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (heic0308). Links Hubblecast 52: The Death of Stars explains how Sun-like stars end their lives as planetary nebulae

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1241a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Hen 3-1475
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula > Type > Planetary
Esahubble_potw1241a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 17h 45m 14.1s
DEC = -17° 56’ 46.9”
Orientation
North is 27.8° CCW
Field of View
0.3 x 0.3 arcminutes
Constellation
Sagittarius
Esahubble_potw1241a_1280
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ID
potw1241a
Subject Category
B.4.1.3  
Subject Name
Hen 3-1475
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA 
Release Date
2012-10-08T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1241a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Instrument
Color Assignment
Band
Bandpass
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
266.308888133, -17.9463625744
Reference Dimension
494.0, 500.0
Reference Pixel
247.0, 250.0
Scale
-1.09728385883e-05, 1.09728385883e-05
Rotation
27.819999999999965
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw1241a
Metadata Date
2012-07-18T15:34:54+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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