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APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
MyCn18: An Hourglass Planetary Nebula
Explanation: The sands of time are running out for the central star of this hourglass-shaped planetary nebula . With its nuclear fuel exhausted, this brief, spectacular, closing phase of a Sun-like star's life occurs as its outer layers are ejected - its core becoming a cooling, fading white dwarf . In 1995, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to make a series of images of planetary nebulae , including the one above . Here, delicate rings of colorful glowing gas ( nitrogen -red, hydrogen -green, and oxygen -blue) outline the tenuous walls of the hourglass . The unprecedented sharpness of the HST images has revealed surprising details of the nebula ejection process that are helping to resolve the outstanding mysteries of the complex shapes and symmetries of planetary nebulas .
| Date | May 10, 2015 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Image Credit: R. Sahai and J. Trauger ( JPL ), WFPC2 , HST , NASA |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |