White Dwarf Cocoon
白矮星茧
Like a butterfly, a white dwarf star begins its life by casting off a cocoon that enclosed its former self. In this analogy, however, the Sun would be a caterpillar and the ejected shell of gas would become the prettiest of all! The above cocoon, the planetary nebula designated NGC 2440, contains one of the hottest white dwarf stars known. The white dwarf can be seen as the bright dot near the photo's center. Our Sun will eventually become a "white dwarf butterfly", but not for another 5 billion years.
就像蝴蝶一样，白矮星开始生命时会脱去包裹其前身的茧。然而在这个类比中，太阳将是一只毛毛虫，而被抛出的气体壳会成为最美丽的！上述的茧，即被指定为行星状星云NGC 2440，包含已知最热的白矮星之一。白矮星可以看作是照片中心明亮的点。我们的太阳最终会成为一只‘白矮星蝴蝶’，但这要等到50亿年后。
Credit: H. Bond (STScI), R. Ciardullo (PSU), WFPC2, Hubble Space Telescope, NASA . The above false color image and was post-processed by Forrest Hamilton.
注：H. Bond (STScI), R. Ciardullo (PSU), WFPC2, 太空望远镜 , NASA 。上述假彩色图像由Forrest Hamilton进行后处理。
| Nebulae
星云 |
NGC 2440: 一颗新白矮星的襁褓
Galaxy concepts
索引星系概念
| HyperPhysics***** Astrophysics
HyperPhysics ***** 天体物理学 | R Nave |
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