New image of the Crystal Ball Nebula captures the ‘spectacular’ throes of a dying star

A new image captured by NOIRLab shows a planetary nebula nicknamed the Crystal Ball Nebula. International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA via CNN Newsource

A new image showcases a dazzling celestial object — a star, paired with another, in the throes of dying that resembles a crystal ball.

Scientists captured the image of NGC 1514, nicknamed the Crystal Ball Nebula, with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph. The instrument is mounted on the Gemini North telescope, which is located on Maunakea, a dormant volcano in Hawaii.

Researchers set aside a few hours during the evenings to observe the skies and identify something awe-inspiring, said astronomer Travis Rector.

“It’s a way to share with people just how amazing our universe is, so the nebula was not a science target, it was one that was chosen just because it looks really cool,” said Rector, a member of the NOIRLab team that took the image. NOIRLab is short for the National Science Foundation’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory.

The image reveals the striking details of the planetary nebula, which lies about 1,500 light-years from Earth in the Taurus constellation. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, which is 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometres) — meaning the light depicted in the image was emitted about 1,500 years ago.

Planetary nebulae derive their name from the fact that they resemble planets when observed through a small telescope. These celestial objects form as dying stars eject their outer layers. The shedding creates a region of dust and gas around the star’s core — a white dwarf.

“They have their own distinct shapes. They’re really spectacularly beautiful objects and they often have these very complex yet symmetric structures,” said Rector, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

The stunning image allows scientists to observe how a two-star system is affected when one star reaches the end of its life before the other.

A two-star system

The Crystal Ball Nebula contains a binary star system: two stars that formed near each other at the same time and orbit around one another. More than half of the stars in our galaxy are part of multi-star systems, according to NASA.

“The first star is blowing off its outer layers. The other star, just by virtue of orbiting around that first star, kind of turns things up and makes these beautiful complex shapes,” Rector said.

The nebula’s colors appear vivid because of a filter in the spectrograph that allows specific wavelengths of light to pass through, corresponding to specific types of gas. The reddish hues come from hot hydrogen and the bright blue from hot oxygen, which are typically the gases most abundantly produced by planetary nebulae.

German-British astronomer William Herschel, who coined the phrase “planetary nebula” when he noticed the objects’ planetlike shape, first spotted the Crystal Ball Nebula in 1790.

One star in this binary system takes nine years to orbit the other, which is a relatively long time, according to Rector, and it’s part of the reason this planetary nebula has an unusual, cloudlike shape.

As the orbiting star moves, it churns the shell of gas expanding off its partner, which creates the nebula’s shape — similar to the way cotton candy spins around to make its cloud of sugar, Rector said.

Learning from Crystal Ball Nebula observations

Jan Cami, a professor of physics and astronomy at Western University in London, Ontario, compares planetary nebulae to butterflies because of their diverse colors and shapes. He was not involved in the work that produced the new image.

A nebula’s appearance can change when using telescopes that operate on different wavelengths.

“If you look at the same object with the James Webb Space Telescope, you would swear you’re actually looking at a completely different object,” Cami said. “It’s one of the reasons we study these objects at different wavelengths.”

Even though Herschel discovered this nebula more than two centuries ago, scientists are still observing and learning from it. As technology improves, telescopes are able to pick up details and capture higher-quality images.

Planetary nebulae have a relatively short-lived dying phase — about 10,000 years. This brief time frame, astronomically speaking, allows scientists to observe the celestial objects as they reach the end of their life, according to Cami.

“In 10 or 20 years, you can see the temperature of the central star changing, you see what sort of effect it has on the nebula. And you can see how this material is expanding out into space, giving you information about how fast the star is losing mass,” Cami said. “That’s why it’s interesting to keep monitoring them every couple of years or so.”

These captivating images are exciting for everyone, even astronomers who look into telescopes and find previously undetected celestial bodies all the time.

“I’ve seen many images and at some point, you think, I probably have seen most of it, and then you get something like this and oh my god, it’s spectacular again,” Cami said.