Garden Sprinkler

Credit: NASA, ESA

NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope spies a sprin­kler sys­tem in space. Some objects in space defy expla­na­tion and Henize 3–1475 is one of them. Henize 3–1475, also known as the Garden-Sprinkler Neb­ula is a plan­e­tary neb­ula. Astronomers are puz­zled by the jets shoot­ing out of this neb­ula. Plan­e­tary neb­u­lae have noth­ing to do with plan­ets. In early tele­scopes, observers noted that some objects in the sky resem­bled the disks of planets.

Explore the image. Jets of fast-moving gas shoot­ing out of plan­e­tary neb­u­lae are typ­i­cal. In the case of Henize 3–1475, the S-shaped jets are per­plex­ing to sci­en­tists. The jets of the Gar­den Sprin­kler Neb­ula shoot out faster than any other known jet with a speed of more than 4 mil­lion kilo­me­ters per hour (2.5 mil­lion mph). Sci­en­tists think that the nebula’s S-shape is cre­ated by two jets of gas point­ing in oppo­site direc­tions while the whole neb­ula rotates. It takes about 1,500 years for the neb­ula to make one rota­tion and the result is a gar­gan­tuan, slowly spin­ning sprin­kler. Notice in the jets that every so often, huge clumps of mate­r­ial get shot out. We see them as knots of mate­r­ial within the jet’s stream.

Plan­e­tary neb­u­lae are the final stage in the life of a star like our Sun. When stars like our Sun reach the end of life and run out of nuclear fuel of hydro­gen and helium, they begin puff­ing away lay­ers of mate­r­ial. They bal­loon to enor­mous size as red giants and con­tinue to blow bub­bles of mate­r­ial into space. This cre­ates a cocoon of expand­ing gas and dust. This phase of its life may last only a thou­sand years; just a tiny por­tion of a stars 8 billion-year life. Dur­ing this time, the cen­tral star lights up the cloud with intense ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion and causes the cloud to glow. We have no cause to worry about our Sun. It wont become a spec­tac­u­lar plan­e­tary neb­u­lae for another 4 bil­lion years or so.

Henize 3–1475 is located about 18,000 light-years away toward the con­stel­la­tion Sagit­tar­ius, the Cen­taur Archer. Sagit­tar­ius is one of the zodi­a­cal con­stel­la­tions. Its basic teapot shape dom­i­nates the south­ern sky dur­ing the north­ern hemi­sphere sum­mer. The con­stel­la­tion was one of the 48 con­stel­la­tions orig­i­nally charted by Ptolemy.