Kepler to Investigate Newly Discovered Nebula

derGoldstein writes with an article in DigitalTrends: "An amateur astronomer recently discovered what has been confirmed to be one of the best looks yet at a planetary nebula, the last, gassy breath of a dying star. The nebula, named Kronenberger 61 after the enthusiast who discovered it, will offer insights into the future and death of our own sun."

Comments

"last, gassy breath of a dying star"

[molo]

Amy Winehouse, is that you?

-molo

What you are seeing

[JoshuaZ]

The pretty picture in TFA is caused by the nebula being lit up by radiation (mainly ultraviolent) from the dying star at the center. As the star dies from running out of stuff which is easy to efficiently fuse in the core, the star undergoes contractions and expansions which push the outer layers away to form a nebula. The term "planetary nebula" is a bit misleading- they are called that because they look like planetary discs if one looks for them in a small telescope. Phil Plait has a pretty good summary of what we are looking at - http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/07/25/a-glowing-bubbly-bauble-in-space/

Re:What you are seeing

[Anonymous Coward]

Ultraviolent radiation? Awesome!

Re:What you are seeing

[symbolset]

While that's a nice story, it's probably mostly incorrect. Most planetary nebulae like this are created when a massive Population II star (over 120 solar masses) that formed in a metal-poor region that was usually deposited by a population III star, explodes in a pair instability supernova. This is a destructive explosion that usually completely obliterates the original star in one blast, having converted up to a fifth of its mass into iron or higher elements. It isn't some pulsing thing that happens over and over. If there's anything left at all it's likely another form of black dwarf consisting of the heaviest elements of the original star's core visible only in the infrared as it can't sustain fusion and its fissibles decompose. The blown off mass is quite important, as that's where we come from. The densest parts of the shell eventually congeal to become stars in a globular cluster. The globular form of the cluster is commonly seen orbiting galaxies rather than within them because the globular form is destroyed over time by tidal forces and interaction with surrounding masses.

This pulsing and contracting thing has been seen and is quite rare. It occurs when the mass of the star is much higher, and its gravity can recapture most of the mass that was thrown off. This would be visible as not one, but multiple shells of glowing gas.

The generations are given in reverse order. Generation I stars like our sun are the oldest, and are probably formed out of the peripheral debris of just such an explosion. Generation II stars are older, and we haven't yet spied a generation III star that formed of hydrogen and helium when more metallic elements didn't yet exist.

Zombie Kepler

[wall0645]

First he will consume images of the nebula, then he will consume your brains.

Re:Weird

[ToxicPig]

There is still a star. It is likely a white dwarf at this stage, or nearing that state. It can be seen in the photo as the white star in the very center of the gas sphere. IF Kepler even detects planets around the white dwarf, it would be extremely interesting (and scientifically significant) to determine what happened to the planets as the star went through its death throes. The inner planets would likely be consumed. The outer planets may have enjoy a brief stint in the Goldilocks Zone of the red giant, and may have very interesting chemistry. Life? Doubtful. Still, cool science to be done here in a somewhat isolated point in time in a star system's life.

"Spurred by the discovery of an amateur astronomer

[polymath69]

Hey, look everybody! It's an amateur astronomer!

Re:Weird

[mrtommyb]

Kepler looks at a region of the say covering around 115 square degrees. However, due to bandwidth limitations we are only able to download data for a limited number of pixels. We predefine around 150k pixel masks and download the data for these. While our primary mission is to find dips in brightness of stars caused by planets passing in front of them we also observe other types of time variable astrophysics. Scientists from around the world write proposals to observe interesting astrophysical phenomena and the best are chosen to have a pixel mask places around. This source was part of a proposal by a team lead by an astronomer called George Jacoby to observe planetary nebulae. There is no intention to do any planetary science with these observations.