A starfish in the sky

Esahubble_potw1136a_1024

esahubble_potw1136a September 5th, 2011

Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA and R. Sahai 

Protoplanetary nebulae offer glimpses of how stars similar to the Sun end their lives and how they make the transition to white dwarfs surrounded by planetary nebulae. As it ages, a Sun-like star eventually sheds its outer layers into space, creating a beautiful and often intricately shaped cloud of gas and dust around it. At first, still relatively cool, the star is unable to ionise this gas, which shines only by reflected and scattered stellar light. Only when the temperature of the star increases enough to ionise this protoplanetary nebula does the pattern of gas and dust become a fully fledged planetary nebula. Protoplanetary nebulae are relatively rare and short-lived objects that provide astronomers with clues into how the often strangely asymmetric planetary nebulae are formed. Clearly visible in this image are five blue lobes that extend away from the central star and give the nebula its asymmetric starfish shape. While astronomers have come up with theories for the origin of these structures, such as direction-changing jets or explosive ejections of matter from the star, their formation is not entirely understood. IRAS 19024+0044 is blue in colour as the blue component of the light coming from the star is more easily scattered by the gas and dust in the nebula, while the red and orange rays are relatively unaffected. This is similar to what happens to sunlight in the Earths atmosphere, giving the sky its distinctive shade of blue. This picture was created from images taken with the High Resolution Channel of Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys. It is a composite image created by the combination of exposures taken through a yelloworange filter (F606W, coloured blue) and a near-infrared filter (F814W, coloured red). The total exposure times were 880 s and 140 s, respectively and the field of view is approximately 13 by 13 arcseconds. Links Paper on IRAS 19024+0044: Sahai, R., Snchez Contreras, C. & Morris, M. 2005, The Astrophysical Journal, 620, 948

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1136a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
IRAS 19024+0044
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula > Type > Planetary
Esahubble_potw1136a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 19h 5m 2.0s
DEC = 0° 48’ 53.4”
Orientation
North is up
Field of View
0.2 x 0.2 arcminutes
Constellation
Aquila

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) -
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (Pseudogreen) -
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) -
Esahubble_potw1136a_1280
×
ID
potw1136a
Subject Category
B.4.1.3  
Subject Name
IRAS 19024+0044
Credits
ESA/Hubble, NASA and R. Sahai 
Release Date
2011-09-05T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1136a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Distance in light years from: http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/620/2/948/60794.text.html
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Infrared, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
I, Pseudogreen, V
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
286.258249399, 0.814835107028
Reference Dimension
589.0, 589.0
Reference Pixel
294.0, 294.0
Scale
-6.95370178693e-06, 6.95370178693e-06
Rotation
0
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
potw1136a
Metadata Date
2011-06-18T23:49:05+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
×

 

Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

×

There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

Providers | Sign In