The Mysterious Cat’s Eye Nebula Is Finally Revealed
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Nothing passes through gas like a dying star.
As stars the size of our sun reach the end of their lives, they expel their outer layers of gas into bright, beautiful bubbles known as planetary nebulae. At the center of each bubble, a weakened star continues to illuminate its surroundings, sculpting the gas into colorful shapes that astronomers have likened to. crab, reptiles When scary screaming face.
One of the strangest and most puzzling of these cosmic cloud paintings is the Cat’s Eye Nebula. earthSeemingly made up of several overlapping bubbles of blue gas with long streamer-like filaments tightly coiled around it, this nebula has defied a clear explanation for centuries.
Now, a new study published in the journal on September 15 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (opens in new tab) It may finally provide an answer. Using data collected by Mexico’s San Pedro Martil National Observatory showing the movement of different layers of gas within the nebula, an astronomer created his first-ever 3D model of the Cat’s Eye Nebula.
A computer-generated map shows a pair of perfectly symmetrical rings that swirl the length of the nebula’s outer crust. According to the researchers, the only possible cause of the symmetry of these rings is a double-barrel burst of energy known as a precession jet.
Essentially, when the central star of the nebula died, twin bursts of dense gas were ejected simultaneously in opposite directions, write the study authors. But rather than remain fixed in place, the jet began to wobble (or precess) like a spinning top, slowly looping a ring of gas swirling above and below the star.
Such jets are rare and only exist in binary star systems, that is, systems in which two central stars orbit each other, the authors write in their study. These jets provide strong evidence that the Cat’s Eye Nebula was once a binary star system that vanished in a spectacular explosion.
“Because precessional jets in planetary nebulae are relatively rare, it is important to understand how jets contribute to the formation of more complex systems like the cat’s eye,” says Stanford University’s Stanford University. said Ryan Clairmont, an undergraduate student and lead author of the study. said in a statement (opens in new tab)“Ultimately, understanding how they form provides insight into the ultimate fate of the Sun, which someday becomes a planetary nebula.”
Originally published in Live Science.
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