Eight-Burst

Credit: The Hub­ble Her­itage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA)

Shaped like the num­ber eight, astronomers in the south­ern hemi­sphere call this the Eight-Burst or the South­ern Ring Neb­ula. NGC 3132 is a plan­e­tary neb­ula. The name “plan­e­tary neb­ula” refers to the shape of the neb­ula. Astronomers in the 17th and 18th cen­turies found many objects in the night sky that resem­bled plan­ets. But the expand­ing shells of gas and dust are all that is left of a star that has reached the end of its life.

Explore the image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope. Two stars clearly show inside NGC 3132’s red and yel­low ring. The fainter one, just above and right of the bright star, is actu­ally the star that ejected the neb­ula. This star is now smaller than our Sun but it is extremely hot. The star also floods space with ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion, caus­ing the cloud to glow. We can see many fine fil­a­ments of mate­r­ial within the neb­ula. One long fil­a­ment resem­bles a belt around the mid­dle of the nebula.

The brighter star near the cen­ter of the neb­ula is a younger star but one day, it too may cre­ate its own plan­e­tary neb­ula. Our Sun may meet a sim­i­lar fate one day but not for another 4 to 5 bil­lion years. Mate­r­ial from the neb­ula will slowly fade as it expands to space. This mate­r­ial, rich in ele­ments such as car­bon will pos­si­bly be used in the mak­ing of future stars and planets.

NGC 3132 is nearly a half a light year in diam­e­ter; about 3 tril­lion miles across. It would take light six months to travel from one side of the neb­ula to the other. The gases are expand­ing from the cen­tral star at a speed of 9 miles per sec­ond. At about 2,000 light years toward the con­stel­la­tion Vela, NGC 3132 is one of the clos­est known plan­e­tary nebula.

Comments

S 12-01-2010, 13:41

the color reminds me of the hot water pools at Yellowstone…and deep in the cen­ter is the reflec­tion of the sun, high overhead…

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