The wings of the butterfly — New Hubble image of the Twin Jet Nebula
The cosmic butterfly pictured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image goes by many names. It is called the Twin Jet Nebula as well as answering to the slightly less poetic name of PN M2-9.
The M in this name refers to Rudolph Minkowski, a German-American astronomer who discovered the nebula in 1947. The PN, meanwhile, refers to the fact that M2-9 is a planetary nebula. The glowing and expanding shells of gas clearly visible in this image represent the final stages of life for an old star of low to intermediate mass. The star has not only ejected its outer layers, but the exposed remnant core is now illuminating these layers — resulting in a spectacular light show like the one seen here. However, the Twin Jet Nebula is not just any planetary nebula, it is a bipolar nebula.
Ordinary planetary nebulae have one star at their centre, bipolar nebulae have two, in a binary star system. Astronomers have found that the two stars in this pair each have around the same mass as the Sun, ranging from 0.6 to 1.0 solar masses for the smaller star, and from 1.0 to 1.4 solar masses for its larger companion. The larger star is approaching the end of its days and has already ejected its outer layers of gas into space, whereas its partner is further evolved, and is a small white dwarf.
The characteristic shape of the wings of the Twin Jet Nebula is most likely caused by the motion of the two central stars around each other. It is believed that a white dwarf orbits its partner star and thus the ejected gas from the dying star is pulled into two lobes rather than expanding as a uniform sphere. However, astronomers are still debating whether all bipolar nebulae are created by binary stars. Meanwhile the nebula’s wings are still growing and, by measuring their expansion, astronomers have calculated that the nebula was created only 1200 years ago.
Within the wings, starting from the star system and extending horizontally outwards like veins are two faint blue patches. Although these may seem subtle in comparison to the nebula’s rainbow colours, these are actually violent twin jets streaming out into space, at speeds in excess of one million kilometres per hour. This is a phenomenon that is another consequence of the binary system at the heart of the nebula. These jets slowly change their orientation, precessing across the lobes as they are pulled by the wayward gravity of the binary system.
The two stars at the heart of the nebula circle one another roughly every 100 years. This rotation not only creates the wings of the butterfly and the two jets, it also allows the white dwarf to strip gas from its larger companion, which then forms a large disc of material around the stars, extending out as far as 15 times the orbit of Pluto! Even though this disc is of incredible size, it is much too small to be seen on the image taken by Hubble.
An earlier image of the Twin Jet Nebula using data gathered by Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 was released in 1997. This newer version incorporates more recent observations from the telescope’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS).
A version of this image was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition, submitted by contestant Judy Schmidt.
Notes
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
More information
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
The Twin Jet Nebula
Credit:
ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
The night sky around the Twin Jet Nebula (ground-based image)
This image shows the region of sky around the planetary nebula called the Twin Jet Nebula. The bipolar planetary nebula lies about 4200 light-years away.
Credit:
NASA, ESA, Digitized Sky Survey 2
VIDEOS .
Hubblecast 86: The wings of the Twin Jet Nebula
This Hubblecast explores the wings of Twin Jet Nebula which were observed and studied by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Credit:
Directed by: Mathias Jäger
Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Written by: Mathias Jäger, Nicky Jenner, Georgia Bladon
Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa
Images: NASA, ESA/Hubble
Videos: NASA, ESA/Hubble, NASA Goodard Space Flight Center
Animations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis Calcada, NASA, ESA/Hubble
Music: Stan Dart (www.stan-dart.com)
Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen
Zooming in on the Twin Jet Nebula
This video begins with a ground-based view of the night sky, before
zooming in on the Twin Jet Nebula, a bipolar planetary nebula, as the
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope sees it.
Credit:
Credit:
NASA & ESA
Panning across the Twin Jet Nebula
This video pans over NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations of
the Twin Jet Nebula. The elongated form of this planetary nebula is
caused by two stars in its centre, orbiting each other.
Credit:
Credit:
NASA & ESA
Fuente: ESA/Hubble Information Centre
Fuente: ESA/Hubble Information Centre
Comentarios