COURTESY GEMINI OBSERVATORY / AURA
This planetary nebula, photographed by the Gemini Observatory on Mauna Kea, will add to the debate on how a dying star is affected by objects around it.
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A striking image of a planetary nebula taken by the Gemini Observatory on Mauna Kea is adding fuel to a fiery debate about the last gasps of dying stars.
Nebulae form after nuclear fusion in a late-life star can no longer counter the pressure of gravity and the star becomes unstable, pulsates and throws off a shell of gas. The expanding gas is ionized and glows due to the radiation still emitted by the central star.
Some scientists say our sun will share this fate.
Scientists say a key question with planetary nebulae is how companion stars or even planets around the primary star might affect the complex structures of the shell.
This nebula, named Kronberger 61 or Kn 61 after its discoverer, Austrian amateur astronomer Matthias Kronberger, will be discussed today at a symposium in Tenerife, Spain. The International Astronomical Union symposium is called "Planetary Nebulae: An Eye to the Future."
The location of the new nebula is within a relatively small patch of sky being monitored by NASA’s Kep-ler planet-finding spacecraft, launched in March 2009.
"Kn 61 is among a rather small collection of planetary nebulae that are strategically placed within Kepler’s gaze," said researcher Orsola De Marco of Macquarie Universityin Australia. "Explaining the puffs left behind when medium-sized stars like our sun expel their last breaths is a source of heated debate among astronomers, especially the part that companions might play."