Tag: NGC 5307
Wobbly Jellyfish
by CritterKeeper on Feb.09, 2010, under Water Creatures
Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Sometimes planetary nebula expand in what look like smooth bubbles. But others take on a wobbly appearance which in some cases are oddly symmetrical. In this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 5307, each blob of gas seems to have a counterpart on the opposite side of the nebula. Astronomers call these spiral planetary nebula. It is thought that the bright central white dwarf star spews out wobbling jet of rapidly moving gas from both ends of the star, spinning around like a top that is about to topple over.
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