Image:PIA04277.jpg

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[edit] Summary

Example of a Bipolar nebula

This image was sourced under free license from NASA's planetary photojournal:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04277 and http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA04277.jpg

[edit] Original Caption Released with Image

A recent image of a dying star containing strange, complex structures may help explain the death throes of stars and defy our current understanding of physics. The image of protoplanetary nebula IRAS22036+5306 (in the Infrared Astronomical Satellite Point Source Catalog) was taken on Dec. 15, 2001, by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, onboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. It is one of the best images yet to capture a fleeting period at the end of a Sun-like star's life, called the protoplanetary nebula phase.

This phase, which looks like a beautiful cloud of glowing gas lit up by ultraviolet light from the star's core, results when a star evolves into a bloated red giant and sheds its outer layers. "Protoplanetary nebulas are rare objects with short lifetimes," said JPL astrophysicist Dr. Raghvendra Sahai. "It has generally been very difficult to obtain images of such objects in which their structure can be resolved in detail."

This image is particularly important because it contains a series of what Sahai and his colleagues call "knotty jets," blob-like objects emerging along roughly straight lines from the center of the cigar-shaped, bipolar nebula (See insets). There are various theories about what may produce such jets, though it is hard to prove their existence due to their short-lived, episodic nature. Detailed multi-wavelength studies of these nebulas with NASA's Great Observatories are being carried out to understand the nature and origin of these enigmatic jets, and how they may be sculpting shrouds of dying stars into exotic shapes. The Hubble Space Telescope is one of NASA's Great Observatories.

[edit] Licensing

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. See Copyright.
Note: This only applies to works of the Federal Government and not to the work of any individual U.S. state, territory, commonwealth, county, municipality, or any other subdivision.

This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy)

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Use of NASA logos, insignia and emblems are restricted per US law 14 CFR 1221.
The NASA website hosts a large number of images from the Soviet/Russian space agency, and other non-American space agencies. These are not in the public domain.
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File history

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	Date/Time	Dimensions	User	Comment
current	18:55, 18 October 2006	869×444 (42 KB)	Mgmirkin (Talk \| contribs)	(This image was sourced under free license from Nasa's planetary photojournal: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04277 and http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA04277.jpg ---------- JPL Image Use Policy Unless otherwise noted, images and )