Credit: NASA, ESA, K. Knoll (NASA Goddard), and S. Öttl (Leopold Franzens Universit ät Innsbruck), et. al.; Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
NGC 2438 is a planetary nebula, formed after the death of a Sun- like star. The medium-sized star would have expelled its external layers of gas into area as it passed away, leaving a white-dwarf core. A halo of radiant gas over 4.5 light-years throughout surrounds the nebula’s brighter inner ring. Many round or almost round planetary nebulae show these halo structures, and astronomers have actually been examining how they develop. NGC 2438 was among the nebulae studied, and scientists discovered that the nebula’s halo shines due to the ionizing radiation of the main white dwarf
In this color-filled image, blue represents oxygen (O III), green is hydrogen (H-alpha), orange is nitrogen (N II), and red is sulfur (S II).
This Hubble Space Telescope image was caught by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, which offered it its distinct stair-shape. One of the cam’s 4 detectors supplied an amplified view, which would be diminished down in the last image to match the other 3, producing the special shape.
The vibrant planetary nebula, NGC 2438, appears to rest on the borders of the open star cluster, M46 (NGC 2437). The nebula is really in the foreground in between us and the star cluster. Credit: NASA, ESA, K. Knoll (NASA Goddard), S. Öttl (Leopold Franzens Universit ät Innsbruck), et. al., and DSS; Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
More Detail on “Missing” Blank Portions in Image
A previous cam set up on Hubble, called the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), produced a “step” result on numerous images. The dark areas or “missing” parts of those images are just parts that have no Hubble information. Three of the cam’s 4 light detectors imaged “wide fields,” while the 4th detector (PC for planetary cam) had greater resolution however covered a smaller sized part of the sky. With all 4 integrated, the “step” result resulted, implying there are locations where Hubble observations were not taken.
WFPC2 was changed throughout Hubble’s last maintenance objective in 2009.
