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The Boomerang Nebula
This image of the Boomerang Nebula was taken in 1998 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 instrument. Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrott called it the Boomerang Nebula in 1980 after observing it with a large ground-based telescope in Australia. Unable to see the detail that only Hubble can reveal, the astronomers saw merely a slight asymmetry in the nebula's lobes suggesting a curved shape like a boomerang. The high-resolution Hubble images indicate that 'the Bow Tie Nebula' would perhaps have been a better name. It shows faint arcs and ghostly filaments embedded within the diffuse gas of the nebula's smooth 'bow tie' lobes. The diffuse bow-tie shape of this nebula makes it quite different from other observed planetary nebulae, which normally have lobes that look more like 'bubbles' blown in the gas. However, the Boomerang Nebula is so young that it may not have had time to develop these structures. Why planetary nebulae have so many different shapes is still a mystery.
The general bow-tie shape of the Boomerang appears to have been created by a very fierce 500,000 kilometer-per-hour wind blowing ultracold gas away from the dying central star. The star has been losing as much as one-thousandth of a solar mass of material per year for 1,500 years. This is 10 to 100 times more than in other similar objects.
About the Object
- R.A. PositionR.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.12h 44m 46.09s
- Dec. PositionDec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.-54° 31' 12.0"
- ConstellationConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.Centaurus
- DistanceDistanceThe physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs.About 5,000 light-years (1,500 parsecs)
- DimensionsDimensionsThe physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky.The nebula has a semi-major axis of roughly 1 light-year (or 0.3 parsecs).
About the Data
- InstrumentInstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.HST>WFPC2
- Exposure DatesExposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.1998
- Object NameObject NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.Boomerang Nebula
- Object DescriptionObject DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.Bipolar Reflection Nebula
- Release DateSeptember 13, 2005
- Science ReleaseHubble Catches Scattered Light from the Boomerang Nebula
- Credit
Related Images & Videos
Scattered Light from the Boomerang Nebula
The Hubble Space Telescope has "caught" the Boomerang Nebula in these new images taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys. This reflecting cloud of dust and gas has two nearly symmetric lobes (or cones) of matter that are being ejected from a central star. Over the last 1,500...
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Details
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov