X-ray image of the Planetary Nebula BD+30 3639 21/03/2000
The Chandra image shows a hot bubble of 3 million degree Celsius gas surrounding a dying, sun-like star that is about 5000 light years from Earth. The distance across the bubble is roughly 100 times the diameter of our solar system.
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Image Credit: NASA/RIT/J.Kastner et al  
The Chandra image shows a hot bubble of 3 million degree Celsius gas surrounding a dying, sun-like star that is about 5000 light years from Earth. The distance across the bubble is roughly 100 times the diameter of our solar system.

The Chandra image shows a region of 3 million degree Celsius gas that appears to fit inside the shell of ionized gas seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. The optical and X-ray emitting regions of BD+30 3639, which lies between 5000 and 8000 light years away, are roughly one million times the volume of our solar system.

According to theory, a "hot bubble" is formed when a new, two million mile per hour wind emanating from the hot core rams into the ejected atmosphere, producing energetic shocks and heating the interaction region to temperatures of millions of degrees.

The shape of the X-ray emission was a surprise to the researchers. "This suggests that the red giant atmosphere was not ejected symmetrically,"said Kastner. "It might be pointing to an unseen companion star,"

The spectrum shows a large abundance of neon in the X-ray-emitting gas. This indicates that gas contained in the hot bubble gas was dredged up from the deepest layers of the central star, where nuclear fusion altered the chemical composition of the gas prior to its being ejected. Thus the Chandra data may offer new insight into the process whereby dying stars enrich the Milky Way in fusion products.

A planetary nebula (so called because it looks like a planet when viewed with a small telescope) is formed when a dying red giant star puffs off its outer layer, leaving behind a hot core that will eventually collapse to form a dense star called a white dwarf. According to theory, a "hot bubble" is formed when a new, two million mile per hour wind emanating from the hot core rams into the ejected atmosphere and heats the interaction region to temperatures of millions of degrees. We are seeing the nebula about a thousand years after it formed.

 
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