File:Ant Nebula.jpg

Original file (1,072 × 708 pixels, file size: 1.14 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Description

The Ant planetary nebula (Menzel 3 or Mz 3). STScI-PRC2001-05

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the ant's body as a pair of fiery lobes protruding from a dying, Sun-like star. Though approaching the violence of an explosion, the ejection of gas from the dying star at the center of Mz3 has intriguing symmetrical patterns unlike the chaotic patterns expected from an ordinary explosion. Scientists using the Hubble space telescope would like to understand how a spherical star can produce such prominent, non-spherical symmetries in the gas that it ejects.

One possibility is that the central star of Mz3 has a closely orbiting companion that exerts strong gravitational tidal forces, which shape the outflowing gas. For this to work, the orbiting companion star would have to be close to the dying star, about the distance of the Earth from the Sun. At that distance the orbiting companion star wouldn't be far outside the hugely bloated hulk of the dying star. It's even possible that the dying star has consumed its companion, which now orbits inside of it, much like the duck in the wolf's belly in the story "Peter and the Wolf."

A second possibility is that, as the dying star spins, its strong magnetic fields are wound up into complex shapes. Charged winds moving at speeds up to 1000 kilometers per second from the star, are able to follow the twisted field lines on their way out into space. These dense winds can be rendered visible by ultraviolet light from the hot central star or from highly supersonic collisions with the ambient gas that excites the material into florescence.

Astronomers Bruce Balick (University of Washington) and Vincent Icke (Leiden University) used Hubble to observe this planetary nebula, Mz3, in July 1997 with the Wide Field Planetary 2 camera. One year later, astronomers Raghvendra Sahai and John Trauger of the Jet Propulsion Lab in California snapped pictures of Mz3 using slightly different filters. This intriguing image, which is a composite of several filters from each of the two datasets, was created by the Hubble Heritage Team.
Source

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2001/05/image/a

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ant.nebula.arp.600pix.jpg)
Author

NASA, ESA & the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

Acknowledgment: R. Sahai (Jet Propulsion Lab), B. Balick (University of Washington


Public domain This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
Warnings:
COPYRIGHT: “Unless otherwise specifically stated, no claim to copyright is being asserted by STScI and it may be freely used as in the public domain in accordance with NASA's contract. However, it is requested that in any subsequent use of this work NASA and STScI be given appropriate acknowledgement.”

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

image/jpeg

05be9652d6aa3170ac5706edb9144367eb75258a

1,192,312 byte

708 pixel

1,072 pixel

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current01:04, 1 February 2008Thumbnail for version as of 01:04, 1 February 20081,072 × 708 (1.14 MB)Papa NovemberFull res version from source
01:01, 1 February 2008Thumbnail for version as of 01:01, 1 February 20081,072 × 708 (148 KB)Papa NovemberUploaded full resolution image from source
14:30, 29 January 2008Thumbnail for version as of 14:30, 29 January 2008600 × 362 (69 KB)Nk{{Information |Description=The Ant planetary nebula (Menzel 3 or Mz 3). STScI-PRC2001-05 This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the ant's body as a pair of fiery lobes protruding from a dying, Sun-like star. Though approaching the violence o

Global file usage

The following other wikis use this file:

View more global usage of this file.