Astronomical studies of the Ring Nebula

According to photos taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the Ring Nebula looks less like a bagel and more like a jam donut because the center of the nebula is filled with a lot of material. A nebula is an interstellar cloud made of dust, hydrogen, helium, and other gases.

The leader of the research team, Robert Odell of Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee), said: "The shape of this nebula does not look like a bagel, but like a sweet jam. donut because the center is filled with a lot of material." Odell and his team used the Hubble Space Telescope and several ground-based telescopes to get a clearer image of this iconic nebula. The photos show the Ring Nebula to be a more complex structure than astronomers had previously thought. With the help of new observational data, they created the most accurate 3D model of the Ring Nebula to date.

Odell said: "With the help of the details provided by the Hubble Telescope, we discovered that this classic nebula has a completely different shape than previously thought. The new observational data obtained by the Hubble Telescope provide a new understanding of this nebula. More details, and we learned that this nebula is not as simple as we previously thought."

The Ring Nebula is about 2,000 light-years away from Earth and about 1 light-year across. Located in the constellation Lyra, this nebula is a favorite among astronomers. Previous observations using telescopes have discovered that there is a large amount of material in the central region of the Ring Nebula. This time, Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 provided richer details than previous observations, allowing scientists to learn more about this nebula.

Odell's team believes the ring surrounds a blue football-shaped structure. Each end of the structure projects into opposite sides of the ring. The Ring Nebula faces Earth obliquely, so astronomers can see its "face". In the Hubble photo, the blue structures are glowing helium gas. The white spot in the center of the ring is radiation produced by the white dwarf, causing the helium to glow. The white dwarf is the remnant of a Sun-like star that has exhausted its hydrogen fuel and stripped away its outer layers of gas.

The details of the Hubble images surprised Odell's team. The photo shows dark irregular dense knots of gas scattered around the inner edge of the ring, like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. These gases must be formed when the expanding hot gas enters the cooling gas released by the white dwarf star, and it is unlikely to be eroded by the ultraviolet radiation of the white dwarf star.

Photos taken by Hubble allowed researchers to compare knots of gas with pillars of light surrounding the bright main ring. Astronomers have found similar dense knots of gas in other planetary nebulae. Studying the fate of the Ring Nebula could help understand the Sun's evolution over the next 6 billion years. "As it becomes a white dwarf, the Sun also sheds its outer layers of gas, gradually increasing its temperature," O'Dell said. "Once it gets hot enough to illuminate the gas, the material moves further away from the Sun. The greater distance means the Sun The nebula is fainter."

This image of the Ring Nebula (also known as "Messier 57") shows vivid shape and color. Viewed from Earth's perspective, the nebula has a simple elliptical shape with rough edges. The Ring Nebula looks like a twisted doughnut, according to new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and several ground-based telescopes

Composite image of the Ring Nebula, combined with the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 and new observational data obtained by the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, USA. In this image, the brilliantly colored Ring Nebula contrasts with the dim surrounding space. The Large Binocular Telescope is part of the Mount Graham International Observatory

This image shows the side-on geometry and structure of the Ring Nebula, the nebula's wide halo and inner regions, and the low-density material clumps Reaching out, away from Earth, the central white spot is the radiation produced by the white dwarf, causing the Helium Glow Digital Sky Survey to create an image of the Ring Nebula and its surrounding space.