The icy blue wings of Hen 2-437

Esahubble_potw1606a_1024

esahubble_potw1606a February 8th, 2016

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)

In this cosmic snapshot, the spectacularly symmetrical wings of Hen 2-437 show up in a magnificent icy blue hue. Hen 2-437 is a planetary nebula, one of around 3000 such objects known to reside within the Milky Way. Located within the faint northern constellation of Vulpecula (The Fox), Hen 2-437 was first identified in 1946 by Rudolph Minkowski, who later also discovered the famous and equally beautiful M2-9 (otherwise known as the Twin Jet Nebula). Hen 2-437 was added to a catalogue of planetary nebula over two decades later by astronomer and NASA astronaut Karl Gordon Henize. Planetary nebulae such as Hen 2-437 form when an aging low-mass star such as the Sun reaches the final stages of life. The star swells to become a red giant, before casting off its gaseous outer layers into space. The star itself then slowly shrinks to form a white dwarf, while the expelled gas is slowly compressed and pushed outwards by stellar winds. As shown by its remarkably beautiful appearance, Hen 2-437 is a bipolar nebula the material ejected by the dying star has streamed out into space to create the two icy blue lobes pictured here.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1606a/

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 2-437
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula > Type > Planetary
Esahubble_potw1606a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 19h 32m 57.6s
DEC = 26° 52’ 43.2”
Orientation
North is 170.2° CW
Field of View
1.2 x 0.8 arcminutes
Constellation
Vulpecula

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Cyan Hubble (ACS) Optical (F606W) 606.0 nm
Orange Hubble (ACS) Infrared (F814W) 814.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Cyan
Orange
Esahubble_potw1606a_1280
×
ID
potw1606a
Subject Category
B.4.1.3  
Subject Name
Hen 2-437
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)
Release Date
2016-02-08T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1606a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Redshift and light-year data not documented on NED, Simbad or other online sources.
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Cyan, Orange
Band
Optical, Infrared
Bandpass
F606W, F814W
Central Wavelength
606, 814
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
293.239819626, 26.8786675554
Reference Dimension
1397.0, 977.0
Reference Pixel
698.5, 488.5
Scale
-1.38848443836e-05, 1.38848443836e-05
Rotation
-170.20000000000002
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
potw1606a
Metadata Date
2015-10-06T10:55:56+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

×

There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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