Starship Asterisk*

The authors state that the binary system has an orbital period of 120 years, but the size of that orbit seems to me to argue against the partner having a significant influence on the jets. What if the orbits were much closer, but the precession frequency was 120 years?

I am curious as to what the dominantly red object is at the top of the APOD. It would seem likely that it is a view of M2-9 through some other imaging filters, but there is no mention.

accidentially merged with june 19th thread - fixed now. if I missed any post there, let me know.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070618.html
The vertical images along the bottom of the picture is the progression of the bright areas through time. The red area at the top is the surrounding area of the nebula. The vertical images would be rotated and would sit inside the darker central area of the greater red nebula at the top.

Thanks for the responses to my query. Though I did think the object at the top of the image was M2-9 I wasn't certain, particularly as the APOD made no mention of it.