The Cat’s Eye Nebula is a planetary nebula located in the Draco constellation. At its center is a dying star. Seen here is the faint halo that stretches 3 light-years around the central nebula. The filaments of the halo are estimated to be 50,000 to 90,000 years old and were shed during earlier periods in the star’s evolution. Their shape is reminiscent of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities, to my eye. (Image credit: T. Niittee; via APOD)
Tag: nebula
A Stellar Look at NGC 602
The young star cluster NGC 602 sits some 200,000 light years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Seen here in near- and mid-infrared, the cluster is a glowing cradle of star forming conditions similar to the early universe. A large nebula, made up of multicolored dust and gas, surrounds the star cluster. Its dusty finger-like pillars could be an example of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities or plumes shaped by energetic stellar jets. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/JWST; via Colossal)
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Soaring Through the Pillars of Creation
The Pillars of Creation are an iconic feature nestled within the Eagle Nebula. For decades, the public has admired Hubble’s images of this stellar nursery, and, in this video, we get to fly between the pillars, shifting between Hubble’s visible light imagery and JWST’s infrared views. In visible light, glowing dust obscures the interior of the pillars, drawing our eyes instead to the dusty shapes eroded by the stellar winds of these young stars. In infrared wavelengths, we see further into the pillars, revealing individual stars burning at the ends of the pillars’ fingers. Being able to peer at the same problem through different techniques — here visible and infrared light — reveals more to scientists than either mode can on its own. (Image/video credit: G. Bacon et al.; via Gizmodo)
A mosaic of Hubble and JWST’s views of the Pillars of Creation, in visible and infrared light, respectively. Fediverse Reactions
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The Best of FYFD 2023
A fresh year means a look back at what was popular last year on FYFD. Usually, I give a numeric list of the top 10 posts, but this year the analytics weren’t as clear. So, instead, I’m combining from a few different sources and presenting an unordered list of some of the site’s most popular content. Here you go:
- Eroding the Sphinx
- Getting Water Out of Your Ear
- Can Water Solve a Maze?
- Dandelion Seeds
- Black Holes in a Bathtub
- Mixing With E. coli
- Beneath the Cavity
- Leidenfrost Explosions
- Toilet Plumes
- Exascale Simulations
- Ghosts of Rivers Past
- Blood Flow in a Fin
- Snake Tracks
- Lagoon Nebula
- “Chaosmosis”
I’m really pleased with the mix of topics this year; many of these topics are straight from research papers, and others are artists’ works. At least one is both. From swimming bacteria to star-birthing nebulas, fluid dynamics are everywhere!
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(Image credits: sphinx – S. Boury et al., ear model – S. Kim et al., maze – S. Mould, dandelion – S. Chaudhry, water tank – P. Ammon, e. coli – R. Ran et al., drop impact – R. Sharma et al., Leidenfrost – L. Gledhill, toilet – J. Crimaldi et al., engine sim – N. Wimer et al., rivers – D. Coe, fin – F. Weston, snake – P. Schmid, nebula – J. Drudis and C. Sasse, flames – C. Almarcha et al.)
Lagoon Nebula
Some 4,100 light years away in the Sagittarius constellation, a stellar nursery births new stars. Known as Messier 8, or the Lagoon Nebula, this region is one of the most visible nebulas from Earth. It is filled with turbulent gases and dark strands of dust. Near the centerline of the image is the bright, hourglass shape of the NGC 6530 star cluster. Its intense ultraviolet light ionizes surrounding gases, creating the distinctive red glow surrounding the nebula. (Image credit: J. Drudis and C. Sasse; via APOD)
Star YY Hya
A team of professional and amateur astronomers discovered and then imaged this previously undiscovered galactic nebula. At the heart of the stellar remnant is a binary star pair. Shock waves of the gas and dust twist and spread in the surrounding space, the remains of an earlier star’s violent eruption. (Image credit: M. Drechsler et al.; via 2023 Astronomy POTY)
Stellar-Wind-Shaped Nebula
Stars about 100 times more massive than our sun live fast and die young. They burn through their hydrogen supply quickly, then start fusing heavier elements. As they do, their strong stellar winds start blowing off the exterior layers of the star. That’s the story behind WR 40, the star at the center of Nebula RCW 58. The nebula itself is made up of material blown off the star, carved into turbulent filaments by stellar winds. (Image credit: M. Selby and M. Hanson; via APOD)
A Starry Nursery
This mountain of interstellar gas and dust lies in the picturesque Eagle Nebula. Though it appears solid in this near-infrared image from JWST, the density of the structure is actually quite low. Jets and solar winds from the glowing, young stars inside the region sculpt the pillar’s shape. Over the next 100,000 years, the stars’ energetic jets, solar winds, and destructive supernovas will destroy the dusty nursery. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/M. Özsaraç)
Witch’s Broom
Known by many names — including the Witch’s Broom Nebula — NGC 6960 is part of a supernova remnant visible in the constellation Cygnus. The wisp-like filaments of the nebula are shock waves moving through the cloud of dust and ionized gas. Based on observations using the Hubble Space Telescope, the nebula is expanding at around 1.5 million kilometers per hour. When the original supernova exploded thousands of years ago, astrophysicists estimate it would have been bright enough to see during daytime! (Image credit: K. Crawford)
Eye of the Stellar Storm
AG Carinae is a bright, unstable luminous blue variable star. This rare type of star lives fast and dies young (by stellar standards) over only a few million years. During that time, it will occasionally blow off its outer layers in a violent eruption as a result of the ongoing tug of war between its radiation pressure and gravity. That’s the source for the nebula we see surrounding the star in this image. The red areas of the image are a mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen gas; the blue clumps are cooler pockets of dust shaped by the hotter, faster-moving stellar wind. Zoom in on the image and you can see amazing structural detail in the nebula, evidence of turbulence on a scale of light-years. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI; via Gizmodo)
