Kepler Drops In On Planetary Nebula

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Discovered by amateur Austrian astronomer, Matthias Kronberger, planetary nebula Kn 61 just happens to be in a relatively small piece of celestial real estate being monitored by NASA’s Kepler planet finding mission. Lucky for us, we’re able to take a look at the photographic results of the new nebula obtained with the Gemini Observatory.

“Kn 61 is among a rather small collection of planetary nebulae that are strategically placed within Kepler’s gaze,” said Orsola De Marco of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia who is the author of a 2009 paper speculating on how companion stars or even planets may influence and shape the intricate structure seen in many planetary nebulae. “Explaining the puffs left behind when medium sized stars like our Sun expel their last-breaths is a source of heated debate among astronomers, especially the part that companions might play,” says De Marco, “it literally keeps us up at night!”

And visions like this keeps the Kepler Mission continually monitoring a 105 square degree area of sky located in Cygnus looking for changes in stellar brightness which could spell a planetary transit, companion star – or something else. “It is a gamble that possible companions, or even planets, can be found due to these usually small light variations,” says George Jacoby of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization and the Carnegie Observatories (Pasadena). “However, with enough objects it becomes statistically very likely that we will uncover several where the geometries are favorable – we are playing an odds game and it isn’t yet known if Kn 61 will prove to have a companion.” Jacoby also serves as the Principal Investigator for a program to obtain follow-up observations of Kn 61’s central star with Kepler.

To help sift through the huge amount of data provided by Kepler, professional and amateur astronomers are working as partners to help locate objects such as planetary nebula. So far, six have been found in the digital sky survey – including Kn 61. “Without this close collaboration with amateurs, this discovery would probably not have been made before the end of the Kepler mission. Professionals, using precious telescope time, aren’t as flexible as amateurs who did this using existing data and in their spare time. This was a fantastic pro-am collaboration of discovery,” says Jacoby, who serves as the liaison with the Deep Sky Hunters (DSH) and requested their help to survey the Kepler field. Jacoby published a paper with DSH members in 2010 that describes the techniques used.

“Planetary nebulae present a profound mystery,” says De Marco. “Some recent theories suggest that planetary nebulae form only in close binary or even planetary systems – on the other hand, the conventional textbook explanation is that most stars, even solo stars like our sun, will meet this fate. That might just be too simple.” Jacoby also elucidates that terrestrial observations are unable to detect such phenomena with a high rate of regularity “This is quite likely due to our inability to detect these binaries from the ground and if so then Kepler is likely to push the debate strongly in one direction or the other.”

As for our own galaxy, over 3,000 planetary nebulae have been identified and cataloged. We know they are the end product of a dying star, but not what role companions stars (or even planets) may take in their structure. Of these, only 20% have binary central stars – but this low number may be our inability to resolve them. Hopefully the space-based Kepler telescope can one day reveal their mysteries us!

Original News Source: Gemini Observatory Image Release.

14 Replies to “Kepler Drops In On Planetary Nebula”

  1. Yo Tammy, at the penultimate paragraph, since we are referring to planetary nebulae – which is plural – “phenomenon”, in the fifth line, should be the plural phenomena.

    1. Would you like to be a moderator? You wouldn’t spam comments and you’d be able to correct whatever you want. Maybe even post links to papers, but I’m not sure how many people here are interested in hardcore stuff…and of course you can ride your truck.

      1. thanks, ivan. i’ve fixed it. i had a go over your links with morning coffee… wow! if only i could just retain everything i read….

      2. thanks, ivan. i’ve fixed it. i had a go over your links with morning coffee… wow! if only i could just retain everything i read….

  2. It’s seems strange but amateur astronomers are now *discovering* and researching new planetary nebulae, again, after a 150 yrs of study by professional astronomers. These large-angular diameter diaphanous bubbles are rather uncommon and new examples like Kn 61 are quite rare.

    The Gemini news release notes amateur imagers can be very flexible in their targeting and observing time while large pro observatories are ill-suited, partially due to oversubscription of telescope time, to carry out survey programs to look for new planetary nebula. Amateur’s access to sensitive CCDs, narrowband filters and pro level image processing software makes these kind of discoveries possible.

    In 2008 several amateur imagers discovered a new, large planetary nebula near the well known (and much photographed, myself included) Bubble Nebula in Cygnus: http://www.lostvalleyobservatory.com/review.nebula1/

    Recently designated PN G075.5 1.7, it has a beautiful delicate “bubble” shape like Kn 61, hovering in a rich Milky Way star field: http://www.lostvalleyobservatory.com/imagelib/sitebuilder/misc/show_image.html?linkedwidth=actual&linkpath=http://www.lostvalleyobservatory.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/und.bubble.cyg.kbq.jpg&target=tlx_new

    How many more examples wait to be discovered hiding in the nebulous mists and star fields of our galaxy?

  3. why did somebody use the geekish word like penultimate when they could have used “next to last” you insulted peoples brains or you are to lazy to type more letters. If I ever had an instructer that used a word like thati would have hit him with a brick!

      1. Also, “that” and “I” is concatenated. Or “put next to each other without spaces” as non-geeks may say all day long. (Because it takes about a day to say it.)

        [This is a fun game! What was the post about, again?]

      2. Good catch!

        “Concatenate,” of course, deriving from the Latin “concatenatus,” which refers to an ancient Roman pastime involving house cats and static electricity.

      3. you might think so a lot of people don’t know the meaning of that word.now your insulting people by useing the word “cromulent”! Now your just being cute!

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