Planetary nebulae

These pictures were taken (as part of a team of astrophysicists) and submitted by Dr. Arsen R. Hajian, an astronomer at the United States Naval Observatory.  He is an Armenian-American Christian, who group up just outside of Boston in the town of Needham, MA.

These images were obtained with the Wide Field Planetary Camera2 (WFPC2) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope.  Until recently (posted 01.08.04), this instrument was the primary imaging device onboard Hubble.

These four objects (IC 418, NGC 6751, NGC 6826, and IC 4663) are all known as planetary nebulae (PNe).  They are the glowing shreds of gas that once composed the atmosphere of a sun-like star before it exhausted its hydrogen fuel.  When the fuel is spent, the star essentially explodes (the physics behind this phenomenon are complex) and spews its atmosphere into space.  Eventually, this gas (which is rich in carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and other elements created by the star) will disperse into space and can potentially be used to create another generation of stars, planets, etc. All of the elements around us that are not hydrogen were created and liberated in a process similar to what we are seeing in these images from the Hubble Space Telescope.  The third image is the Spirograph Nebula, IC 418, an object named by Dr. Hajian.  The fourth image, NGC 6751, was selected a one of the feature images of the 10th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope.

These beautiful and incredible pictures - and many others like them - can be found at the following websites:

The Hubble Heritage web site is at http://heritage.stsci.edu .
Dr. Arsen R. Hajian's planetary nebula web page is at
http://ad.usno.navy.mil/pne.

Planetary Nebula IC 418_0028b	IC 4663
NGC 6826	Planetary Nebula NGC 6751_0012