The Manta Ray Nebula, the youngest known, has said goodbye forever. The NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope was in the right place at the right time and has captured in real time how it has faded from the cosmos.
When it comes to objects in the universe, we are more used to thinking in terms of billions, but the Hen Nebula 3-1357, better known as the Manta Ray Nebula, has disappeared in decades.
First photographed by Hubble in 1996, the nebula’s bright blue tendrils and gas filaments at its center evidenced its dramatic outburst. Now archival data shows that by 2016, the nebula had dimmed and its wavy edges had all but evaporated.
“This is very, very dramatic and very strange,” said Martin A. Guerrero, a member of the Hubble team. “What we are witnessing is the evolution of a nebula in real time. Over a span of years, we see variations in the nebula. We haven’t seen that before with the clarity that we get with this view. “
The dimming is due to changes in the light emitted by the bright hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen emitted by the dying star at its center. According to the researchers, the oxygen emission was reduced by a factor of almost 1,000 during these two decades.
The culprit appears to be the nebula’s central star, SAO 244567, which experienced a rapid rise in temperature, from 22,000 ° C to 60,000 ° C, according to a 2016 study based on observations of the nebula between 1971 and 2002. After that the star expanded, the star went through a cooling phase, emitting less ionizing radiation. Here we have the before and after.
