Starship Asterisk*

[quote="ron"]

How can the central star be not much older than the stars of M46? I thought planetary Nebula came of Stars with similar mass and age of the Sun
So the star must be at least 4.5 Billion years old to be a planetary Nebula ?the Young stars of M46 would not be even one tenth of that age.
Am I correct in assuming this ?[/quote]
I misread this the first time myself.

You missed reading the word [color=#FF0000][b]ONLY[/b][/color] because of is similarity to the word [b]NOT[/b]:

[list][i]But this planetary nebula's central star is not [color=#FF0000][b]ONLY[/b][/color] much older than the stars of M46,
it moves through space at a different speed than the cluster stars.[/i][/list]

How can the central star be not much older than the stars of M46? I thought planetary Nebula came of Stars with similar mass and age of the Sun
So the star must be at least 4.5 Billion years old to be a planetary Nebula ?the Young stars of M46 would not be even one tenth of that age.
Am I correct in assuming this ?

[quote="Craig Willford"]

How can the dying central star be so energetic as to ionize its own cast off gas now 4.5 light years away?[/quote]
[size=200]Vitameatavegamin[/size]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMVEjRZ__ws[/youtube]

How can the dying central star be so energetic as to ionize its own cast off gas now 4.5 light years away?

The nebula is "About 3,000 light-years distant " according to the explanation.

You note an outer ring of glowing atomic mass over 4.5 light years in diameter. Isn't the nearest star to our sun approximately 5 light years away? And what is speculated to happen when this ring of energy reaches an adjacent star such as our sun and the planetary system surrounding it?

I notice ther is a sceond planetary nebula in this picture. 8-)
[img2]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0903/m46n2438_ritter.jpg[/img2]

After viewing the APOD history of NGC 2438 listed above, this photo is certainly a giant leap forward in capturing the nebula in such fine detail.

Congratulations to Mr. Lopez!!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990305.html

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090326.html

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060910.html

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101202.html

Congratulations Daniel, it's a realy beautiful image.
Greetings
César

[url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110407.html][img]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_110407.jpg[/img] [size=150]Planetary Nebula NGC 2438[/size][/url]

[b] Explanation: [/b] [url=http://seds.org/messier/xtra/ngc/n2438.html]NGC 2438[/url] is a [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110218.html]planetary nebula[/url], the gaseous shroud cast off by a dying sunlike star billions of years old whose central reservoir of hydrogen fuel has been exhausted. About 3,000 light-years distant it lies within the boundaries of the nautical [url=http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/pup/index.html]constellation Puppis[/url]. Remarkably, NGC 2438 also seems to lie on the outskirts of bright, relatively [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090326.html]young open star cluster M46[/url]. But this planetary nebula's [url=http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/observers/n2438.html]central star[/url] is not only much older than the stars of M46, it moves through space at a different speed than the cluster stars. Distance estimates also place NGC 2438 [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101202.html]closer than M46[/url] and so the nebula appears in the foreground, only by chance along the line-of-sight to the young star cluster. [url=http://www.iac.es/telescopes/IAM/2011/72_abr11_ngc2438.jpg.html]This deep image of NGC 2438[/url] highlights a previously unseen halo of glowing atomic gas over 4.5 light-years across, extending beyond the nebula's brighter inner ring. Similar haloes have been found in deep images of other [url=http://www.ing.iac.es/~rcorradi/HALOES/]planetary nebulae[/url], produced during the earlier active phases of their aging central stars.

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