- 4116 - RING NUBULAE - future of our solar system? - When dense patches of these clouds condense and collapse under their own gravity, they birth new stars that contain the material from stellar predecessors. That means objects like the Ring Nebula can weave a tale of stellar life and death.
-------------- 4116 - RING NUBULAE - future of our solar system?
- The James Webb Space Telescope has imaged
the Ring Nebula as a glowing green and purple eye, presenting the astronomical
object in an altogether new light. The
Ring Nebula, also known as Messier 57 (M57), is located 2,200 light-years away.
-
- Located in the Lyra constellation, the Ring
Nebula is a popular target for space enthusiasts as its donut-shaped ring of
glowing gas and dust is visible even with small backyard telescopes throughout
the summer.
-
- The Ring Nebula is the glowing remains of a
long-dead star, a class of astronomical object called a "planetary
nebula," which somewhat confusingly has nothing to do with planets. At its
heart is a white speck that represents a white dwarf star , what remains of
that extinct stellar body's core.
-
- The Ring Nebula, is particularly fascinating
to astronomers because not only is it close enough to be viewed with even
amateur telescopes, but from our vantage point in the solar system, the
planetary nebula is tilted so that it is viewed face-on. That means that
observing the Ring Nebula with space telescopes offers astronomers the
opportunity to see what is going on within planetary nebula and shed light on
the life and death of stars.
-
- The high-resolution images not only
showcase the intricate details of the nebula's expanding shell but also reveal
the inner region around the central white dwarf in exquisite clarity.
-
- When stars of similar sizes to the sun
exhaust their fuel for nuclear fusion, they can no longer support themselves
against the inward force of their own gravity, ending the balancing act that
kept the star stable for as long as billions of years.
-
- As the core collapses, the outer layers of
the star, where nuclear fusion still proceeds, are blasted outwards. This
initially causes the star to swell out as a “red giant”, a phase which the sun
will undergo in around 5 billion years when it will puff out to around the
orbit of Mars, consuming the inner planets, including Earth.
-
- This outer shell of material eventually
cools and disperses to form a variety of different shapes, including wispy
clouds, expanding bubbles or ring-shaped nebulas like M57. What shape a
planetary nebula will take hinges on the complex physical processes occurring
within it, processes that scientists still don't fully understand.
-
- That means that observations of this system
give us a glimpse of what the solar system could look like in billions of
years. Astronomers can also glean
information about the chemical processes occurring in the planetary nebula by
analyzing the colors their gas and dust emit as the stars in their centers
blast it with radiation.
-
- The
material in planetary nebulas like M57 is enriched with the heavy elements that
are forged during the life of the dead star that created it. Eventually, much
of this matter will be incorporated into huge clouds of gas and dust called
interstellar clouds.
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-
August 12, 2023 RING
NUBULAE - future of our solar system? 4116
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