Fliers Around the Blue Snowball Nebula
Explanation:
Planetary nebulae are strange. First, they
are gas clouds and have nothing to do with
our Solar System's
planets. Next, although hundreds of planetary nebulae
have been catalogued and thousands surely exist in
our Galaxy,
aspects of the formation process are still debated. But now yet
another mystery has come to light: what created the fast-moving
gas clouds that appear around
planetary nebula?
Dubbed
FLIERs
for Fast Low-Ionization Emission Regions, these knots of dense
gas appear to have been ejected from the central star
before
it cast of the planetary nebula. Currently, no model can account
for either their formation or longevity. In the above false-color picture
of NGC 7662, the
Blue Snowball Planetary Nebula,
the FLIERs are featured in the image inserts.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
