Explanation: It's the dim star, not the bright one, near the center of NGC 3132 that created this odd but beautiful planetary nebula. Nicknamed the Eight-Burst Nebula and the Southern Ring Nebula, the glowing gas originated in the outer layers of a star like our Sun. In this reprocessed color picture, the hot purplish pool of light seen surrounding this binary system is energized by the hot surface of the faint star. Although photographed to explore unusual symmetries, it's the asymmetries that help make this planetary nebula so intriguing. Neither the unusual shape of the surrounding cooler shell nor the structure and placements of the cool filamentary dust lanes running across NGC 3132 are well understood.
Planetaries are just so fascinating. I looked at that single dust lane in the image and thought of the multiple lanes in IC4406. Then again, there seems to be a fainter dust lane on the "opposite" side of the bubble.
Boomer12k wrote:
Could it be running into material that was already there?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3132 wrote:
<<Images of NGC 3132 reveal two stars close together within the nebulosity, one [star] of 10th magnitude, the other 16th. The central planetary nebula nucleus (PNN) or white dwarf central star is the fainter of these two stars. This hot central star of about 100,000 K has now blown off its layers and is making the nebula fluoresce brightly from the emission of its intense ultraviolet radiation.>>
Congratulations, a picture of something astronomers admit they don't understand that refrains from using baby talk like 'nursery, soup, etc. or oxymorons like "hot young stars"
ThinkTank wrote:Congratulations, a picture of something astronomers admit they don't understand that refrains from using baby talk like 'nursery, soup, etc. or oxymorons like "hot young stars"
Theta1 A, B, C, D, E Orionis, five hot young stars.
ThinkTank wrote:
Congratulations, a picture of something astronomers admit they don't understand that refrains from using baby talk like 'nursery, soup, etc. or oxymorons like "hot young stars"
Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)
Pee-wee: There's a lotta things about me you don't know anything about, Dottie. Things you wouldn't understand. Things you couldn't understand. Things you shouldn't understand.
Beyond wrote:Of course it's anything but, but to me, it kinda looks soft, cozy and comfortable.
Must depend on our different life experiences. To me it looks like an open wound!
Rob
You may be right,Rob. When i first posted, i was tired and ready to go to bed. This morning, it seems to have lost some of it's cozy comfortableness and does kinda resemble a gapeing open wound.So it would seem the condition of the eyes that behold, dictate the result of their seeing.
Beyond wrote:You may be right,Rob. When i first posted, i was tired and ready to go to bed. This morning, it seems to have lost some of it's cozy comfortableness and does kinda resemble a gapeing open wound.
I'd go with the Toilet Bowl Nebula. There is a kind of comfort there, I guess.
Chris
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Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory https://www.cloudbait.com
Looks like that planet eater from "Star Trek" TOS. Once again, serendipity aimed an open end our way so we can see the innards. Remind me to hunt down the percentage of open-ended nebulae aimed our way vs those we see from the side. I think the sides should glow in infrared?
Boomer12k wrote:
Could it be running into material that was already there?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3132 wrote:
<<Images of NGC 3132 reveal two stars close together within the nebulosity, one [star] of 10th magnitude, the other 16th. The central planetary nebula nucleus (PNN) or white dwarf central star is the fainter of these two stars. This hot central star of about 100,000 K has now blown off its layers and is making the nebula fluoresce brightly from the emission of its intense ultraviolet radiation.>>
Art...
I was thinking about the dust...not so much the blown off shell of gases. Do the DUST lanes come from the star? Or are they material that was in the interstellar medium. It is .8 light year in diameter. It is like a shock wave or Bow wave running into existing material. Was the dust apart of the system, or beyond the system, in the system's Ort Cloud perhaps?
"Neither the unusual shape of the surrounding cooler shell nor the structure and placements of the cool filamentary dust lanes running across NGC 3132 are well understood."
Makes me think the dust lane structure and placement is not from the Star, itself...
Postby bryan.leveritt@ yaho » Wed Apr 10, 2013 3:24 am
Source of the observed structure of NGC3132
I can see and visualize what caused this opening and strings but can I put it into words. First proposal, As we visualize the the ejecta from the exploding star heading toward the young star. It impacts the magnetic field of the young star and like the solar wind and earth is to a great extent parted around the magnetic field of the star. This creates the hole in the ejecta. As it is propelled past the young star some that is closer to the star is pulled by gravity into a rotating turbulence on the back side of the young star. These rotating turbulences affected by their forward and rotational momentum and possibly their small gravity have unfurled,straitened out. Like several dust devils they have formed the strings. Look at the strings for the residual structure of this origin.
The second proposal is similar, but instead the hole is created by the gravity field of the young star pulling in the ejecta within the range of the star's gravity. This would heat up the young star also. Ejecta that has sufficient velocity to pass by but was deflected into turbulence on the backside of the young star forms into vortexes which have straightened out forming the strings. This is much like a fluid flowing around a round object. The rotation of the binary system further stirs up the ejecta with their gravitational fields and rotary momentum. With a proper computer program this should be easy to model. This program should be at NASA or in the engineering department of a university. This is a good research project for one of you with access to to these programs.
NGC 3132: The Southern Ring Nebula
