A Closer Look at Hubble’s 31st Anniversary Snapshot

Esahubble_potw2137c_1024

esahubble_potw2137c September 13th, 2021

Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, A. Nota, C. Britt

This comparison view shows puffing dust bubbles and an erupting gas shell — the final acts of a monster star.You can explore the detail of the nebula surrounding the star AG Carinae by using the slider tool on the image above.  This Picture of the Week showcases new views of the dual nature of the star AG Carinae, which was the target of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 31st anniversary image in April 2020. This new perspective was developed thanks to Hubble’s observations of the star in 2020 and 2014, along with others captured by the telescope’s WFPC2 instrument in 1994. You can compare these two new versions of AG Carinae by using the slider tool on the image above. The first image showcases the details of the ionised hydrogen and ionised nitrogen emissions from the nebula (seen here in red). In the second image, the blue demonstrates the contrasting appearance of the distribution of the dust that shines of reflected stellar light. Astronomers believe that the dust bubbles and filaments formed within and were shaped by powerful stellar wind . This giant star is waging a tug-of-war between gravity and radiation to avoid self-destruction. The star is surrounded by an expanding shell of gas and dust — a nebula — that is shaped by the powerful winds emanating from the star. The nebula is about five light-years wide, equal to the distance from here to our nearest star, Alpha Centauri. AG Carinae is formally classified as a Luminous Blue Variable because it is hot (blue), very luminous, and variable. Such stars are quite rare because there are not many stars that are so massive. Luminous Blue Variable stars continuously lose mass in the final stages of their life, during which a significant amount of stellar material is ejected into the surrounding interstellar space, until enough mass has been lost that the star has reached a stable state.  AG Carinae is surrounded by a spectacular nebula, formed by material ejected by the star during several of its past outbursts. The nebula is approximately 10 000 years old, and the observed velocity of the gas is approximately 70 kilometres per second. While this nebula looks like a ring, it is in fact a  hollow shell rich in gas and dust, the centre of which has been cleared by the powerful stellar wind travelling at roughly 200 kilometres per second. The gas (composed mostly of ionised hydrogen and nitrogen) is visible to us in these images as a thick bright red ring, which appears doubled in places — possibly the result of several outbursts colliding into each other. The dust, here visible in blue, has formed in clumps, bubbles and filaments that are shaped by the stellar wind. Scientists who observed the star and its surrounding nebula note that the ring is not  perfectly spherical; it appears to have a bipolar symmetry, indicating that the mechanism producing the outburst may have been caused by the presence of a disc in the centre, or that the star is not alone but might have a companion (known as a binary star). An alternative and simpler theory is that the star rotates very fast (as many massive stars have been found to do).

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2137c/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Baltimore, MD, United States

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
AG Carinae
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Type > Wolf-Rayet
Esahubble_potw2137c_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 10h 56m 11.6s
DEC = -60° 27’ 13.0”
Orientation
North is 49.4° CCW
Field of View
1.3 x 1.3 arcminutes
Constellation
Carina

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Cyan Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (V) 547.0 nm
Orange Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (NII) 658.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Ultraviolet (UV) 275.0 nm
Cyan Hubble (WFC3) Optical (Strömgren y) 547.0 nm
Orange Hubble (WFC3) Optical (H-alpha + NII) 657.0 nm
Red Hubble (WFC3) Optical (I) 845.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Cyan
Orange
Blue
Cyan
Orange
Red
Esahubble_potw2137c_1280
×
ID
potw2137c
Subject Category
B.3.2.4  
Subject Name
AG Carinae
Credits
ESA/Hubble and NASA, A. Nota, C. Britt
Release Date
2021-09-13T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2137c/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFPC2, WFPC2, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3
Color Assignment
Cyan, Orange, Blue, Cyan, Orange, Red
Band
Optical, Optical, Ultraviolet, Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
V, NII, UV, Strömgren y, H-alpha + NII, I
Central Wavelength
547, 658, 275, 547, 657, 845
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None, None, None, None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
164.04829259167784, -60.45360682991253
Reference Dimension
1918.0, 1917.0
Reference Pixel
959.5, 958.0
Scale
-1.1015621736552828e-05, 1.1015621736552828e-05
Rotation
49.399999999999331
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
https://esahubble.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
ESA Office, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Dr
City
Baltimore
State/Province
MD
Postal Code
21218
Country
United States
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw2137c
Metadata Date
2021-07-05T21:42:22+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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