July 16, 2014 Minkowski’s Footprint, a protoplanetary nebula in Cygnus Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Minkowski’s Footprint [designated Minkowski 92 (M1-92) and IRAS 19343+2926] is a bipolar protoplanetary nebula, located about 8,000 light-years away from Earth in the northern constellation of Cygnus (the Swan), that features two vast onion-shaped structures on either side of a central [continue reading]
March 29, 2013 The Retina Nebula, a planetary nebula in Lupus Image Credit: C. R. O’Dell (Vanderbilt Univ.) et al., Hubble Heritage Team, NASA The Retina Nebula (designated IC 4406) is a bipolar planetary nebula that measures about 0.13 × 0.45 light-year. It is located some 2,000 light-years away, near the western border of the southern constellation [continue reading]
March 23, 2013 Hubble 5, a bipolar planetary nebula in Sagittarius Image Credit: Bruce Balick (University of Washington), Vincent Icke (Leiden University, The Netherlands), Garrelt Mellema (Stockholm University), and NASA/ESA Hubble 5 (also designated ESO 455-42, PN G359.3-00.9 or Hen 2-286) is a “butterfly” or bipolar (two-lobed) planetary nebula located about 2,200 light-years away in [continue reading]
February 15, 2013 NGC 6164, an emission nebula in Norma Image Credit & Copyright: Don Goldman, Astrodon Imaging (http://www.astrodonimaging.com) NGC 6164 is a bipolar emission nebula of about 4 light-years across that lies some 4,200 light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation of Norma. It is approaching us at approximately 53.9 kilometers per second. [continue reading]
November 18, 2012 The Southern Crab Nebula, a planetary nebula in Centaurus Image Credit: Romano Corradi, Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain; Mario Livio, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.; Ulisse Munari, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova-Asiago, Italy; HugoSchwarz, Nordic Optical Telescope, Canarias, Spain; and NASA/ESA The Southern Crab Nebula (He2-104) is a bipolar planetary [continue reading]
A research group led by Dr. Masaomi Tanaka (NAOJ), Dr. Koji Kawabata (Hiroshima University), Dr. Takashi Hattori (NAOJ), and Dr. Keiichi Maeda (University of Tokyo, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe) used the Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph (FOCAS) on the Subaru Telescope to conduct observations that revealed a clumpy [continue reading]