Planetary nebulae occupy 90% of the matter in the interstellar medium. Previously, scientists believed that the substance
At the end of its life, the star loses most of itsof its mass and becomes a white dwarf: during this period it usually emits strong ultraviolet radiation. It was believed that this radiation destroys any molecules in the interstellar medium, turning them into atoms. The results of observations showed that this is not so.
During their work, the authors discovered inmolecular clouds of methanol distant from the center of the Galaxy: they studied 20 molecular clouds in the Cygnus arms and found methanol in all twenty. They were located at a distance of 13 to 23.5 kiloparsecs from the center of the Galaxy, which is significantly further than the outer limit of the habitable zone - the region with the most favorable conditions for the origin and safe evolution of life, located within 10 kiloparsecs from the center of the Milky Way.
This tells us that in a dying star,spherical until its last phase, after passing through the planetary nebula stage, very interesting dynamics occur that change this spherical shape.
Lucy Ziouris, researchers from the University of Arizona
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