Located 15,000 light years away from Earth , in the constellation Sagittarius, the Necklace Nebula or PN G054, is a planetary nebula that is nothing but a precious piece of cosmic jewelry.
It was discovered in 2005 by a team of astronomers using the Isaac Newton Telescope in the Canary Islands, Spain.
“The Collar Nebula was produced by a pair of stars similar to the Sun in close orbit,” explained the Hubble astronomers. “About 10,000 years ago, one of the aging stars expanded and engulfed its smaller companion, creating something we call a ‘common envelope.’ The smaller star continued to orbit within its larger companion, increasing the rotation speed of the giant swollen until much of it spun into space. This leaking ring of debris formed the Collar Nebula, with particularly dense gas clumps forming the brilliant ‘diamonds’ around the ring, “the experts continue.
Although we seem to see a single bright point in the center of the image, these are the two stars that formed this nebula, but they are so close together, barely a few million kilometers apart, that it gives us the impression that make up one.
“Despite their close encounter, the stars still revolve furiously around each other, completing an orbit in just over a day, ” the researchers clarify.
The new image of the planetary nebula was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument. And the color we see is the result of assigning different shades to each monochrome image associated with a specific filter.
