'Tis the season for holiday decorating and tree-trimming. Not to be left out, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have photographed a festive-looking nearby planetary nebula called NGC 5189. The intricate structure of this bright gaseous nebula resembles a glass-blown holiday ornament with a glowing ribbon entwined.
Planetary nebulae represent the final brief stage in the life of a medium-sized star like our Sun. While consuming the last of the fuel in its core, the dying star expels a large portion of its outer envelope. This material then becomes heated by the radiation from the stellar remnant and radiates, producing glowing clouds of gas that can show complex structures, as the ejection of mass from the star is uneven in both time and direction.
A spectacular example of this beautiful complexity is seen in the bluish lobes of NGC 5189. Most of the nebula is knotty and filamentary in its structure. As a result of the mass-loss process, the planetary nebula has been created with two nested structures, tilted with respect to each other, that expand away from the center in different directions.
This double bipolar or quadrupolar structure could be explained by the presence of a binary companion orbiting the central star and influencing the pattern of mass ejection during its nebula-producing death throes. The remnant of the central star, having lost much of its mass, now lives its final days as a white dwarf. However, there is no visual candidate for the possible companion.
The bright golden ring that twists and tilts through the image is made up of a large collection of radial filaments and cometary knots. These are usually formed by the combined action of photo-ionizing radiation and stellar winds.
This image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on July 6, 2012, in filters tuned to the specific colors of fluorescing sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Broad filters in the visible and near-infrared were used to capture the star colors.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | NGC 5189 |
| Object Description | Planetary Nebula |
| R.A. Position | 13h 33m 32.91s |
| Dec. Position | -65° 58' 26.58" |
| Constellation | Musca |
| Distance | 1,800 to 3,000 light-years (540 - 900 parsecs) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from proposal : Hubble Heritage Team: PI: Z. Levay (STScI), K. Noll (NASA/GSFC), and M. Mutchler, L. Frattare, W. Januszewski, C. Christian, T. Borders, M. Livio, J. Mack, and J. Sokol (STScI) |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | July 6, 2012, Exposure Time: 7 hours |
| Filters | F502N ([O III]), F657N (H-alpha+[N II]), F673N [S II], F606W (V) and F814W (I) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble's WFC3 instrument. Several filters were used to sample various wavelengths/frequencies. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Cyan: F502N ([O III]) Orange: F657N (H-alpha+[N II]) Green: F673N [S II] Blue: F606W (V) Yellow: F814W (I) |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The 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. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
