Astronomy Picture of the Day
Posted By admin On February 18, 2011 @ 9:26 pm In Photo Essays | Comments Disabled
Visit the NASA/JPL website to view more Astronomy Pictures of the Day [1]
[2]
Planetary Nebula Project
Credit & Copyright [3]: J-P Metsävainio (Astro Anarchy [4])
Explanation: Cast off by dying sunlike stars, planetary nebulae [5] are a brief but glorious final phase of stellar evolution. The gaseous shrouds are ionized by an extremely hot central source, the shrinking core of a star running out of fuel for nuclear fusion [6]. Shining in the cosmic night, their simple symmetries [7] are fascinating and have inspired this planetary nebula poster project [8]. In it, nine planetaries are displayed for comparison in a 3×3 grid. Of course, planetary nebula fans should be able to pick out [8] the bright Messier objects M27 [9] – the Dumbbell Nebula, M76 [10] – the Little Dumbbell, and M57 [11] – the Ring Nebula, as well as NGC 6543 [12], aka the Cat’s Eye Nebula. Lesser known nebulae include the Medusa [13] and theBug [14]. All the images were made with detailed narrow band data and are shown at the same angular scale [15], spanning 20 arc minutes (1/3 degree). At that scale, the grey circle represents the apparent size of the Full Moon. These planetary nebulae hint [16] at the fate of our own Sun as its core runs out of nuclear fuel in another 5 billion years [17].
Article printed from Recorder Online: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com
URL to article: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2011/02/18/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-14/
URLs in this post:
[1] Astronomy Pictures of the Day: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
[2] Image: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/pn912035927_metsavainio.jpg
[3] Copyright: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply
[4] Astro Anarchy: http://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.com/
[5] planetary nebulae: http://seds.org/messier/planetar.html
[6] fuel for nuclear fusion: http://fusedweb.pppl.gov/cpep/chart_pages/5.plasmas/Nebula.html
[7] symmetries: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/tyger.html
[8] planetary nebula poster project: http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/02/planetary-nebula-poster.html
[9] M27: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100826.html
[10] M76: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100723.html
[11] M57: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080918.html
[12] NGC 6543: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070629.html
[13] Medusa: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap071123.html
[14] Bug: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070429.html
[15] angular scale: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/scale.html
[16] hint: http://arxiv.org/abs/1010.3802
[17] 5 billion years: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1997/38/background/#background-info-2
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