Feast your eyes on the Fried Egg Nebula

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2011) — Astronomers have used ESO's Very Large Telescope to image a colossal star that belongs to one of the rarest classes of stars in the Universe, the yellow hypergiants. The new picture is the best ever taken of a star in this class and shows for the first time a huge dusty double shell surrounding the central hypergiant. The star and its shells resemble an egg white around a yolky center, leading the astronomers to nickname the object the Fried Egg Nebula.

The monster star, known to astronomers as IRAS 17163-3907 [1], has a diameter about a thousand times bigger than our Sun. At a distance of about 13 000 light-years from Earth, it is the closest yellow hypergiant found to date and new observations show it shines some 500 000 times more brightly than the Sun [2].

"This object was known to glow brightly in the infrared but, surprisingly, nobody had identified it as a yellow hypergiant before," said Eric Lagadec (European Southern Observatory), who led the team that produced the new images.

The observations of the star and the discovery of its surrounding shells were made using the VISIR infrared camera on the VLT. The pictures are the first of this object to clearly show the material around it and reveal two almost perfectly spherical shells.

If the Fried Egg Nebula were placed in the centre of the Solar System Earth would lie deep within the star itself and the planet Jupiter would be orbiting just above its surface. The much larger surrounding nebula would engulf all the planets and dwarf planets and even some of the comets that orbit far beyond the orbit of Neptune. The outer shell has a radius of 10 000 times the distance from Earth to the Sun.

Yellow hypergiants are in an extremely active phase of their evolution, undergoing a series of explosive events -- this star has ejected four times the mass of the Sun in just a few hundred years [3]. The material flung out during these bursts has formed the extensive double shell of the nebula, which is made of dust rich in silicates and mixed with gas.

This activity also shows that the star is likely to soon die an explosive death -- it will be one of the next supernova explosions in our galaxy [4]. Supernovae provide much-needed chemicals to the surrounding interstellar environment and the resulting shock waves can kick start the formation of new stars.

The Very Large Telescope mid-IR instrument, VISIR, captured this delicious image of the Fried Egg Nebula through three mid-infrared filters that are here coloured blue, green and red [5].

Notes

[1] The name indicates that the object was first spotted as an infrared source by the IRAS satellite in 1983 and the numbers show the star's place in the sky, in the heart of the Milky Way in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion).

[2] IRAS 17163-3907 is one of the 30 brightest stars in the infrared sky, at the wavelength of 12 microns observed by IRAS, but it had been overlooked because it is quite faint in visible light.

[3] The total mass of this star is estimated to be roughly twenty times that of the Sun.

[4] After burning all their hydrogen all stars of ten solar masses or more become red supergiants. This phase ends when the star has finished burning all of its helium. Some of these high-mass stars then spend just a few million years in the post-red supergiant phase as yellow hypergiants, a relatively short time in the life of a star, before rapidly evolving into another unusual type of star called a luminous blue variable. These hot and brilliant stars are continuously varying in brightness and are losing matter due to the strong stellar winds they expel. But this is not the end of the star's evolutionary adventure, as it may next become a different kind of unstable star known as a Wolf-Rayet star (http://www.eso.org/public/images/wr124/), before ending its life as a violent supernova explosion.

[5] The three mid-infrared filters that were used passed light at wavelengths around 8590 nm (coloured blue), 11 850 nm (coloured green) and 12 810 nm (coloured red).

More information

This research is presented in a paper "A double detached shell around a post-Red Supergiant: IRAS 17163-3907, the Fried Egg nebula " by E. Lagadec et al., submitted to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The team is composed of E. Lagadec (ESO, Garching, Germany), A.A. Zijlstra (Jodrell Bank Center For Astrophysics, Manchester, UK), R.D. Oudmaijer (University of Leeds, UK), T. Verhoelst (Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, Leuven, Belgium), N.L.J. Cox (Instituut voor Sterrenkunde), R. Szczerba (N. Copernicus Astronomical Center, Torun, Poland), D. Mekarnia (Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur, Nice, France) and H. van Winckel (Instituut voor Sterrenkunde).

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive astronomical observatory. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world's largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning a 40-metre-class European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky."

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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by ESO.

Journal Reference:

E. Lagadec, A. Zijlstra, R. Oudmaijer, T. Verhoelst, N. Cox, R. Szczerba, D. Me ´karnia and H. Van Winckel. A double detached shell around a post-Red Supergiant: IRAS 17163-3907, the Fried Egg nebula. Astronomy & Astrophysics, September 26, 2011

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

View the original article here

Feast your eyes on the Fried Egg Nebula

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2011) — Astronomers have used ESO's Very Large Telescope to image a colossal star that belongs to one of the rarest classes of stars in the Universe, the yellow hypergiants. The new picture is the best ever taken of a star in this class and shows for the first time a huge dusty double shell surrounding the central hypergiant. The star and its shells resemble an egg white around a yolky center, leading the astronomers to nickname the object the Fried Egg Nebula.

The monster star, known to astronomers as IRAS 17163-3907 [1], has a diameter about a thousand times bigger than our Sun. At a distance of about 13 000 light-years from Earth, it is the closest yellow hypergiant found to date and new observations show it shines some 500 000 times more brightly than the Sun [2].

"This object was known to glow brightly in the infrared but, surprisingly, nobody had identified it as a yellow hypergiant before," said Eric Lagadec (European Southern Observatory), who led the team that produced the new images.

The observations of the star and the discovery of its surrounding shells were made using the VISIR infrared camera on the VLT. The pictures are the first of this object to clearly show the material around it and reveal two almost perfectly spherical shells.

If the Fried Egg Nebula were placed in the centre of the Solar System Earth would lie deep within the star itself and the planet Jupiter would be orbiting just above its surface. The much larger surrounding nebula would engulf all the planets and dwarf planets and even some of the comets that orbit far beyond the orbit of Neptune. The outer shell has a radius of 10 000 times the distance from Earth to the Sun.

Yellow hypergiants are in an extremely active phase of their evolution, undergoing a series of explosive events -- this star has ejected four times the mass of the Sun in just a few hundred years [3]. The material flung out during these bursts has formed the extensive double shell of the nebula, which is made of dust rich in silicates and mixed with gas.

This activity also shows that the star is likely to soon die an explosive death -- it will be one of the next supernova explosions in our galaxy [4]. Supernovae provide much-needed chemicals to the surrounding interstellar environment and the resulting shock waves can kick start the formation of new stars.

The Very Large Telescope mid-IR instrument, VISIR, captured this delicious image of the Fried Egg Nebula through three mid-infrared filters that are here coloured blue, green and red [5].

Notes

[1] The name indicates that the object was first spotted as an infrared source by the IRAS satellite in 1983 and the numbers show the star's place in the sky, in the heart of the Milky Way in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion).

[2] IRAS 17163-3907 is one of the 30 brightest stars in the infrared sky, at the wavelength of 12 microns observed by IRAS, but it had been overlooked because it is quite faint in visible light.

[3] The total mass of this star is estimated to be roughly twenty times that of the Sun.

[4] After burning all their hydrogen all stars of ten solar masses or more become red supergiants. This phase ends when the star has finished burning all of its helium. Some of these high-mass stars then spend just a few million years in the post-red supergiant phase as yellow hypergiants, a relatively short time in the life of a star, before rapidly evolving into another unusual type of star called a luminous blue variable. These hot and brilliant stars are continuously varying in brightness and are losing matter due to the strong stellar winds they expel. But this is not the end of the star's evolutionary adventure, as it may next become a different kind of unstable star known as a Wolf-Rayet star (http://www.eso.org/public/images/wr124/), before ending its life as a violent supernova explosion.

[5] The three mid-infrared filters that were used passed light at wavelengths around 8590 nm (coloured blue), 11 850 nm (coloured green) and 12 810 nm (coloured red).

More information

This research is presented in a paper "A double detached shell around a post-Red Supergiant: IRAS 17163-3907, the Fried Egg nebula " by E. Lagadec et al., submitted to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The team is composed of E. Lagadec (ESO, Garching, Germany), A.A. Zijlstra (Jodrell Bank Center For Astrophysics, Manchester, UK), R.D. Oudmaijer (University of Leeds, UK), T. Verhoelst (Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, Leuven, Belgium), N.L.J. Cox (Instituut voor Sterrenkunde), R. Szczerba (N. Copernicus Astronomical Center, Torun, Poland), D. Mekarnia (Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur, Nice, France) and H. van Winckel (Instituut voor Sterrenkunde).

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive astronomical observatory. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world's largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning a 40-metre-class European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky."

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by ESO.

Journal Reference:

E. Lagadec, A. Zijlstra, R. Oudmaijer, T. Verhoelst, N. Cox, R. Szczerba, D. Me ´karnia and H. Van Winckel. A double detached shell around a post-Red Supergiant: IRAS 17163-3907, the Fried Egg nebula. Astronomy & Astrophysics, September 26, 2011

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

View the original article here

Crab Nebula Emits Largest Gamma Ray Burst Ever Seen, Puzzles Astronomers

Crab Nebula Emits Largest Gamma Ray Burst Ever Seen, Puzzles Astronomers | Popular Science@import "/files/css/d6aad7f7d1d1484a4d015f8ad6128167.css";@import "/files/css/33f6b7ecb4513ed2fe6c670880a27187.css"; home Login/Register Newsletter Subscribe RSS GadgetsComputersCamerasSmartphonesSmart TVsVideo GamesMore From Our Partner: CEAGCarsConceptsHybridsElectric CarsAuto DIYMore From Our Partner: DriversideScienceFuture of the EnvironmentEnergyHealthPopSci Eco TourTechnologyMilitaryAviationSpaceRobotsDIYProjectsHacksToolsAuto DIYMore From Our Partner: Toolmonger GalleriesVideosColumnsThe GrouseSex FilesGreen Dream How It WorksAuto DIYFeatures Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Reddit Print Email Crab Nebula Emits Largest Gamma Ray Burst Ever Seen, Puzzles Astronomers By Clay Dillow Posted 05.12.2011 at 2:43 pm 5 Comments
The Crab Nebula (And Its Enigmatic Eruption) The nebula set against a full-sky gamma ray map, showing the Crab Nebula's location in the crosshairs. NASA

Something strange is afoot in the Crab Nebula. Famous for beaming a steady dose of radiation at Earth at regular intervals thanks to the spinning neutron star at its center, the nebula has long been of interest to astronomers. So one can imagine their interest when an enormous gamma-ray flare five times more powerful than any previously detected burst from the region, making these "the highest-energy electrons known to be associated with any cosmic source," according to NASA.

The Crab Nebula is basically the remnants of a supernova located about 6,500 light years away (in Taurus, for those of you keeping tabs on the heavens at home). What was once the star’s core is now an expanding gas cloud anchored by a superdense neutron star that rotates 30 times per second, each time swinging a beam of intense radiation toward the Earth.

Related ArticlesAstronomers Find Massive, Previously Undetected Gamma Radiation Bubbles Adorning the Milky WayShedding Some Light on Gamma Ray BurstsStrongest X-Ray Burst Ever Seen Bombards NASA's Swift Observatory, Temporarily Blinding ItTagsTechnology, Clay Dillow, crab nebula, Fermi space telescope, gamma-ray bursts, gamma-rays, SpaceThat’s been going on, from our perspective here, for thousands of years. And it’s been doing so with regularity, 30 times per second, ceaselessly. A handful of short-lived gamma-ray flares have been detected over the years, but nothing that fell outside the range of what’s considered normal cosmic violence.

Then, on April 12, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope--and later Italy’s AGILE satellite--picked up this monster of a flare 30 times more intense than the nebula’s normal energy output and five times more powerful than any previous uptick in energy. Four days later an even brighter flare erupted. Then, two days after that, the strange activity ceased without explanation.

Astronomers theorize that the flares must be coming from somewhere within a one-third of-a-light-year radius of that central neutron star, and that the area doing the emitting must be close to the size of our own solar system. And to offer some perspective on the energy unleashed, the electrons in these emissions must have energies some 100 times greater than the highest achievable energies in the LHC.

But what caused them is still unknown. The prevailing theory seems to be that the magnetic field around the neutron star suddenly rearranged itself, accelerating particles quickly to nearly the speed of light. As high speed electrons interact with the shifting magnetic field, gamma-rays are produced. Observations are ongoing. In the meantime, it gives us an excuse to post brilliantly pretty images of the Crab Nebula, like the one above.

[NASA]

Previous Article: Video: New ZeroTouch Interface is a Touchscreen Without the ScreenNext Article: Financial Trading Algorithms Aren't Just Making Deals, They're Making War 5 Comments Link to this comment diogogmiranda 05/12/11 at 7:25 pm

Wait, let me understand something here. If the Crab Nebula is 6,500 light years away from here, it means that the light traveling from there takes 6,500 years to get here.
So that happened 6,500 years ago, tight?
If so, how come they're talking in the present? And how long does it take for the radiation to travel compared to the light?

Thanks

Link to this comment yeahilikescience 05/13/11 at 12:28 am

Radiation and light travel at the same speed because visible light is just a form of radiation, the only part of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes can detect due to our photoreceptors.

Could it possibly be that something with considerable mass collided with the neutron star, causing a great release of energy because of the star's immense gravity? After all, something approximate to a marshmallow colliding with a neutron star releases about the equivalent energy to an atomic bomb.

Link to this comment yeahilikescience 05/13/11 at 12:30 am

And they're talking in the present because technically speaking, due to space time relativity, all time is now. And because although it happened 6500 years ago 6500 light years away, it is occurring for us to observe now.

Link to this comment OtakuElite 05/14/11 at 1:48 am

What I'm confused about is that the increase in energy means that the rotation of the gas cloud temporarily increased, and "... the magnetic field around the neutron star suddenly rearranged itself, accelerating particles quickly to nearly the speed of light."

So my question is, wouldn't those bursts of increased energy be moving faster than the other pulses, moving out of sequence with the other 30 times per second bursts we can witness here? The statement about nearly the speed of light just leads me to believe it is moving faster then the previous pulses.

Link to this comment JediMindset 05/14/11 at 11:59 am

wow. maybe this has something to do with 2012. its all falling into place. and real science is proving it.

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