Shells in the Egg Nebula
Explanation:
The Egg Nebula is taking a beating.
Like a baby chick pecking its
way out of an egg, the star in the center of the
Egg Nebula
is casting away shells of gas and
dust
as it slowly transforms itself into a
white dwarf star.
The
above picture
was taken by the newly installed
Near
Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) now on board the
Hubble Space Telescope.
A thick torus of dust now surrounds the star
through which the shell gas is escaping.
Newly expelled gas shells escape in beams as can be seen in the
original HST image and in the
image shown above.
This infrared image is coded in false color to highlight
two different types of emission. The red light represents
hot hydrogen gas heated by the collisions of expanding shells.
The blue light represents light from the
central star scattered by the
dust in the nebula.
It takes light about 3000 years to reach us from the
Egg Nebula, which is hundreds of times the size of our
Solar System.
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.
