Helix Nebula Infrared Enhanced
by Weston Westmoreland
Title
Helix Nebula Infrared Enhanced
Artist
Weston Westmoreland
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
The Helix Nebula Infrared, Enhanced.
Infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of the Helix nebula.
This planetary nebula is located about 700 light-years away in Aquarius. Discovered in the 18th century, these colorful beauties were named for their resemblance to gas-giant planets like Jupiter.
Planetary nebulae are the remains of stars like our sun. In their death, they puff out their outer gaseous layers. These layers are heated by the hot core of the dead star, called a white dwarf, and shine with infrared and visible colors. Our own sun will blossom into a planetary nebula when it dies in about five billion years.
In Spitzer's infrared view of the Helix nebula, the outer gaseous layers appear in blues and greens. The white dwarf is visible as a tiny white dot in the center of the picture. The red color in the middle of the eye is composed by the final layers of gas blown out when the star died.
The brighter red circle in the very center is the glow of a dusty disk circling the white dwarf (the disk itself is too small to be resolved). This dust, discovered by Spitzer's infrared heat-seeking vision, was most likely kicked up by comets that survived the death of their star. Before the star died, its comets and possibly planets would have orbited the star in an orderly fashion. But when the star blew off its outer layers, the icy bodies and outer planets would have been tossed about and into each other, resulting in an ongoing cosmic dust storm. Any inner planets in the system would have burned up or been swallowed as their dying star expanded.
So far, the Helix nebula is one of only a few dead-star systems in which evidence for comet survivors has been found.
Original image and text by NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ.of Ariz. Further image enhancements and post processing by Weston Westmoreland.
More enhanced NASA/Hubble images one copy-paste away at https://weston-westmoreland.pixels.com/collections/astronomy
Weston Westmoreland
Uploaded
May 21st, 2021
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