planetary nebulae tagged posts

This image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the colorful “last hurrah” of a star like our sun. Credit: NASA, ESA, and K. Noll (STScI), Acknowledgment: The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

This image by Hubble shows the colorful “last hurrah” of a star like our sun. The star is ending its life by casting off its outer layers of gas, which formed a cocoon around the star’s remaining core. Ultraviolet light from the dying star makes the material glow. The burned-out star ie white dwarf, is the white dot in the center. Our sun will eventually burn out and shroud itself with stellar debris, but not for another 5 billion years.

Our Milky Way Galaxy is littered with these stellar relics, ie planetary nebulae. The objects have nothing to do with planets...

Based on a culmination of ten years of research work, the new method to estimate more accurate distances between planetary nebulae and the Earth developed by HKU astronomers promises a new era in scientists’ ability to study and understand the fascinating if brief period in the final stages of the lives of low- and mid-mass stars. Credit: The University of Hong Kong

A way of estimating more accurate distances to the thousands of “planetary nebulae” has just been announced by 3 astronomers at Uni of Hong Kong (HKU): Dr David Frew, Professor Quentin Parker and Dr Ivan Bojicic, based on 10 yrs of research work. With this technique, “planetary nebulae” finally get a more meaningful physical presence.

Ghostly and beautiful planetary nebulae” have nothing to do with planets but acquired this nam...

A collage showing 22 individual planetary nebulae artistically arranged in approximate order of physical size. The scale bar represents 4 light years. Each nebula’s size is calculated from the authors’ new distance scale, which is applicable to all nebulae across all shapes, sizes and brightnesses. The very largest planetary nebula currently known is nearly 20 light years in diameter, and would cover the entire image at this scale. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, ESO, Ivan Bojicic, David Frew, Quentin Parker

A way of estimating more accurate distances to the thousands of so-called planetary nebulae dispersed across our Galaxy has been announced by a team of three astronomers based at the University of Hong Kong: Dr David Frew, Prof Quentin Parker and Dr Ivan Bojicic...