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Indian astrophysicists have discovered large ultraviolet lobes and jets that were launched from a dying star, using data from AstroSat – space observatory launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in 2015.
The discovery was presented like the photo of the month AstroSat (APOM) of October.
Professor Kameswara Rao of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and his collaborators used the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) on board AstroSat to observe a planetary nebula called NGC 6302, known as the butterfly nebula. A planetary nebula is formed when a star like our Sun, or sometimes heavier, is at the end of its life. The term, an abuse of language, was invented by astronomers in the 19th century because the nebula looked like a planet through their telescopes.
"When the hydrogen and fuel that held the shining star ran out, it expanded and became a red giant star. These stars lose most of their outer layers that expand outward and the inner core, consisting of carbon and oxygen, shrinks further and becomes warmer. This hot core shines brightly in the ultraviolet and ionizes the expanding gas. This incandescent ionized gas is what is considered a planetary nebula, "said Professor Rao.
Sredam Krishna, a student from Rao, spent many hours badyzing data from the butterfly nebula. "Its central star is one of the hottest we know, at 220000 degrees. The name itself comes from the shape of the two expanding gas lobes that look like butterfly wings, "he said. The planetary nebula might be expected to be spherical, but it actually has a range of complicated structures. "We used the UVIT on AstroSat to create four images of the nebula, each with different 'colors' of ultraviolet, or filters. The image made with the filter centered at 160.8 nanometers, called F169M, reserved us a surprise, "said Sriram.
Astronomers have studied the two lobes of the nebula through images in visible light. They expect the more energetic ultraviolet light to be emitted closer to the central star, where the hot stellar wind hits the slowly expanding gas. "However, we have discovered that the lobes imaged with the F169M filters in the ultraviolet were about three times larger than the size of the lobes imaged in visible light, "said Sriram.After careful badysis, their study concluded that this ultraviolet emission should be due to molecular hydrogen cold outside visible lobes hitherto undetected.
"Our discovery suggests an invisible invisible star in an orbit with the central star," said Firoza Sutaria, one of In addition, the researchers found two weak jets coming out of the center, almost perpendicular to our new ultraviolet lobes. The team led by Professor Rao recently discovered a large ultraviolet halo in another planetary nebula using AstroSat. It will examine many other such objects in the future. They hope that such discoveries will provide an answer to the old problem of the "missing mbad problem in planetary nebulae"
. This discovery was made possible by the uniqueness of UVIT. "Among all the ultraviolet telescopes in the space, UVIT is special in its ability to image a large field of view with very high resolution, or details," Dr. Girish said. ISRO. "This capability, coupled with an innovative image badysis software that we had developed, led us to this discovery," said Jayant Murthy, co-author of the article. and Director of IIA.
These findings were recently published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, co-authored by Kameswara Rao, Sriram Krishna, Jayant Murthy, Firoza Sutaria, and Rekesh Mohan of IIA, Alak Ray's Center of Education. Science and De Marco scientist from Macquarie University in Australia.
The AstroSat The Picture of the Month series, or APOM, is an initiative launched a year ago by the Astronomical Society's Public Education and Outreach Committee (POEC), as well as by the 39, AstroSat training and awareness team. The goal of APOM is to share with the audience the excitement of AstroSat science and the beauty of the Universe.
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