The Red Square Nebula
What could cause a nebula to appear square? No one is quite sure. The hot star system known as MWC 922, however, appears to be embedded in a nebula with just such a shape. The featured image combines infrared exposures from the Hale Telescope on Mt. Palomar in California, and the Keck-2 Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
A leading progenitor hypothesis for the square nebula is that the central star or stars somehow expelled cones of gas during a late developmental stage. For MWC 922, these cones happen to incorporate nearly right angles and be visible from the sides. Supporting evidence for the cone hypothesis includes radial spokes in the image that might run along the cone walls.
Researchers speculate that the cones viewed from another angle would appear similar to the gigantic rings of supernova 1987A, possibly indicating that a star in MWC 922 might one day itself explode in a similar supernova.
Image & info via APOD
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Image Credit & Copyright:
Peter Tuthill (Sydney U.) & James Lloyd (Cornell)
#universe #space #nebula
The blood red, nebulous nebula.
ReplyDelete“Did you know that the center of a Protostar (the star in the middle of a nebula) is called a Nuclear Furnace? So you can call that the star's "heart." The heart of a star is a furnace. Not much unlike the human heart.”
― C. JoyBell C.
Sure is pretty, whatever did it!
ReplyDeleteLooks a bit like an hourglass. If only we could see the Universe from another galaxy. I expect even if we had a telescope on Pluto, or 'Planet X', the view would be similar
ReplyDeleteIt is just me or there are a few hexagonal as well? The fact the "horizontal" part seems parallel to the horizontal part of the hexagonal ones and the fact the hexagonal patterns seems not equiangular as well makes me think this is a superposition of 2 slightly off patterns (a sort of circular "beat")
ReplyDelete