Astronomers rarely notice the rapidly fading veil of gas around an aging star. Archived data
In the pictures taken by Hubble in 2016,a nebula is visible, which sharply dimmed and changed in shape. The bright, blue, fluorescent tendrils and filaments of gas toward the nebula's center have disappeared, and the wavy edges that gave the nebula its name are almost invisible. The nebula is now harder to spot.
“It's very, very dramatic and weird.What we are seeing is the evolution of the nebula in real time. We will see such changes in the nebula over the next few years. However, we have not seen this phenomenon so clearly before. "
Martin A. Guerrero from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Granada, Spain
Researchers have found unprecedentedchanges in the light emitted by incandescent nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen that explodes as a dying star in the center of the nebula. In particular, in the period from 1996 to 2016, the brightness of oxygen emission decreased by almost a thousand times.
According to scientists, this process indicateschanges in the fundamental structure of the nebula. Moreover, its dimensions are changing in record time. Astronomers emphasize that it will hardly be visible in space in 20-30 years. Perhaps it is responding to the processes taking place with its central star SAO 244567, which is expanding due to a drop in temperature.
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