by Anthony Barreiro » Thu Aug 16, 2012 6:13 pm
Catlin0 wrote:Thank you for your beautiful picture. One question for you or the scientists behind the education:
What are inhabitants of this planet likely to experience when the nebula wind reaches our solar system in 5,000 years? Is there any way to computer animate the most likely scenario? If so, will someone please let the rest of us know (in color and on the APOD site if possible). It should be beautiful if it can still be seen approaching the solar system or hitting our magnetic field.
(I'm not a scientist, just a stargazer.) Your question seems to be based on an incorrect assumption. This nebula is 5000 light years away. That's the distance light travels through a vaccuum in 5000 years. So Mr. Metsävainio's picture already shows us what the light from this nebula looks like, 5000 years after it was emitted by sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms excited by the radiation from the central star. This cloud of stuff is going to continue to expand due to the outward pressure of radiation from the star, but it is not expanding at anywhere near the speed of light, and it is going to dissipate into the surrounding space long before it gets to our neighborhood. 5000 years after the star explodes in a supernova, folks on Earth will see a bright new star in the constellation Cygnus.
So, here's a couple of questions for Ann and the other scientists: How fast is this nebula expanding? And do we have any idea when the central star will go supernova?
And J-P, thank you for the link to the zoom images of this nebula. They are very helpful in understanding where and how big it is in the sky.
[quote="Catlin0"]Thank you for your beautiful picture. One question for you or the scientists behind the education:
What are inhabitants of this planet likely to experience when the nebula wind reaches our solar system in 5,000 years? Is there any way to computer animate the most likely scenario? If so, will someone please let the rest of us know (in color and on the APOD site if possible). It should be beautiful if it can still be seen approaching the solar system or hitting our magnetic field.
[/quote]
(I'm not a scientist, just a stargazer.) Your question seems to be based on an incorrect assumption. This nebula is 5000 light years away. That's the distance light travels through a vaccuum in 5000 years. So Mr. Metsävainio's picture already shows us what the light from this nebula looks like, 5000 years after it was emitted by sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms excited by the radiation from the central star. This cloud of stuff is going to continue to expand due to the outward pressure of radiation from the star, but it is not expanding at anywhere near the speed of light, and it is going to dissipate into the surrounding space long before it gets to our neighborhood. 5000 years after the star explodes in a supernova, folks on Earth will see a bright new star in the constellation Cygnus.
So, here's a couple of questions for Ann and the other scientists: How fast is this nebula expanding? And do we have any idea when the central star will go supernova?
And J-P, thank you for the link to the zoom images of this nebula. They are very helpful in understanding where and how big it is in the sky.