Tag: Nebula

Una jarra cósmica desbordando material estelar

sarah JonasFeature

Una serie de nubes simétricas y ondulantes de polvo y gas marcan la agónica muerte de una antigua estrella gigante roja, tal como lo muestra esta imagen obtenida en Chile por el telescopio Gemini Sur, parte del Observatorio Internacional Gemini, operado por AURA y NOIRLab de NSF. La estructura resultante, que se dice se parece a una jarra inglesa de estilo antiguo, es una nebulosa de reflexión bipolar que rara vez es posible de apreciar. La evidencia sugiere que este objeto se formó por las interacciones entre la estrella gigante roja moribunda y una estrella compañera destrozada hace mucho.

Rare, Double-Lobe Nebula Resembles Overflowing Cosmic ‘Jug’

sarah JonasFeature

A billowing pair of nearly symmetrical loops of dust and gas mark the death throes of an ancient red-giant star, as captured by Gemini South, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab. The resulting structure, said to resemble an old style of English jug, is a rarely seen bipolar reflection nebula. Evidence suggests that this object formed by the interactions between the dying red giant and a now-shredded companion star.

Hubble Captures Unprecedented Fading of Stingray Nebula

sarah JonasResearch Results

Great things take time. This is true when it comes to many processes in the universe. For example, it takes millions of years for stars—the building blocks of the universe—to form. Then, many stars last for billions of years before they die and begin to eject shells of gas that glow against the vastness of space—what we call nebulas. It can be exceedingly rare to capture some of these processes in real time.

Lucky for us, it seems as if the Stingray nebula, Hen 3-1357, was destined to stand out from the crowd since its beginnings. It was dubbed the youngest known planetary nebula in 1998 after Hubble caught a rare peek at the central star’s final stages of life. Now, twenty years after its first snapshot, the Stingray nebula is capturing the attention of astronomers again for a very different reason.

Images from 2016 show a nebula that has drastically faded over the last two decades. Additionally, shells of gas that surrounded the central star have changed, no longer as crisp as