Hubble Captures Surprise Decay of Stingray Nebula

Most phenomena happen over a period of a million or billion years. But the Hubble Space Telescope experienced something remarkable in over only two decades. It observed the Stringray nebula from being brilliant in 1996 to becoming faded in 2016, as though it had been left standing on a galactic drying line.

When it was first detected, Stingray, more formally known as Hen 3-1357, was celebrated as the youngest planetary nebula known. During the star's end of existence, the nebula developed when it expelled glowing gases which gave it a marine-animal-like shape.

The dramatic makeover it has been through in just a small period is what's so wild about the nebula. "Changes like this have never been captured at this clarity before," NASA said in a statement on Thursday, calling it "a rare look at a rapidly fading shroud of gas around an aging star."

Hubble is jointly run by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). Astronomers are conscious of what both organizations have identified as "unprecedented" modifications. In the original shot, the nebula released tons of nitrogen (red), hydrogen (blue) and oxygen (green), which gave it its distinct form and light.

"This is very, very dramatic, and very weird," said Hubble team member Martín Guerrero of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Spain. "What we're witnessing is a nebula's evolution in real time."

Within the nebula, which underwent a rapid increase in heat accompanied by a cooling process, the culprit is possibly the central star. It seems that Hubble was fortunate to take the photos because it caught a before-and-after glimpse of the wild swing of the nebula. NASA predicts that it could be only observable within only a few decades at this point.

NASA Hubble Twitter account jumped on the "How it started/How it's going" meme with Stingray nebula's before and after pictures.

Hubble manages to feed us amazing celestial observations, from soul-wrenching views of the distant cosmos to stunning photos of Jupiter, after being in space for an impressive 30 years.

What To Expect

According to lead author Bruce Balick, an emeritus professor of astronomy at UW, the Stingray Nebula would be hardly visible in 20 or 30 years if dimming occurs at the current pace. He added that Stingray already started disappearing when Hubble acquired the first direct pictures of it in 1996.

"We're seeing the Stingray nebula fade significantly in an incredibly compressed time frame of just 20 years; moreover, its brightest inner structure has contracted - not expanded - as the nebula fades."

When they exhaust hydrogen fuel, planetary nebulae form after most stars, even stars like our own sun, swell into red giants. The star then expels massive quantities of its outer material at the end of the red giant level, when it eventually turns into a thin, compact white dwarf over a million years.

For several thousand years, the sloughed-off substance spreads outwards as the star heats the material, which gradually becomes ionized and glows.

Check out more news and information on Space on Science Times.