Hubble Reveals Retina Nebula

Image credit: Hubble

The most recently released photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope is of wispy nebula IC 4406, dubbed the “Retina Nebula”. The object is a ring of dust and gas around a dying star and is nearly perfectly symmetrical. One of the more interesting features is the lattice of dark lanes that crisscross the centre of the nebula, each of which is 160 astronomical units wide (1 AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun). The photograph is a composite of images taken in June 2001 and January 2002.

A dying star, IC 4406, dubbed the “Retina Nebula” is revealed in this month’s Hubble Heritage image.

Like many other so-called planetary nebulae, IC 4406 exhibits a high degree of symmetry; the left and right halves of the Hubble image are nearly mirror images of the other. If we could fly around IC 4406 in a starship, we would see that the gas and dust form a vast donut of material streaming outward from the dying star. From Earth, we are viewing the donut from the side. This side view allows us to see the intricate tendrils of dust that have been compared to the eye’s retina. In other planetary nebulae, like the Ring Nebula (NGC 6720), we view the donut from the top.

The donut of material confines the intense radiation coming from the remnant of the dying star. Gas on the inside of the donut is ionized by light from the central star and glows. Light from oxygen atoms is rendered blue in this image; hydrogen is shown as green, and nitrogen as red. The range of color in the final image shows the differences in concentration of these three gases in the nebula.

Unseen in the Hubble image is a larger zone of neutral gas that is not emitting visible light, but which can be seen by radio telescopes.

One of the most interesting features of IC 4406 is the irregular lattice of dark lanes that criss-cross the center of the nebula. These lanes are about 160 astronomical units wide (1 astronomical unit is the distance between the Earth and Sun). They are located right at the boundary between the hot glowing gas that produces the visual light imaged here and the neutral gas seen with radio telescopes. We see the lanes in silhouette because they have a density of dust and gas that is a thousand times higher than the rest of the nebula. The dust lanes are like a rather open mesh veil that has been wrapped around the bright donut.

The fate of these dense knots of material is unknown. Will they survive the nebula’s expansion and become dark denizens of the space between the stars or simply dissipate?

This image is a composite of data taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in June 2001 by Bob O’Dell (Vanderbilt University) and collaborators and in January 2002 by The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI). Filters used to create this color image show oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen gas glowing in this object.

Original Source: Hubble News Release