What do planetary nebulae do

The high temperature central regions drive the outer half of the star away in a brisk stellar wind, lasting a few thousand years. When the process is complete, the remaining core remnant is uncovered and heats the now distant gases and causes them to glow.

Despite the name, these objects are totally unrelated to "planets". It is commonly thought that they may represent the final episode of the Sun's existence as a star. It is estimated that there are about 10, planetary nebulae in our galaxy, so they are a relatively common, although short-lived phase about 25, years of the stellar life cycle. Bublitz presented an image showing three separate jets at work shaping the nebula. Those gases will eventually become part of the Interstellar Medium.

In this way, planetary nebulae play an important role in shaping the next generation of stars. The gases from the nebulae have a higher metallicity, and the stars that form from those gases will have a higher metallicity.

So will any planets that form around any of those stars. And rocky planets like Earth require metals to form. Planetary nebulae are fascinating, even without all of this detailed knowledge to explain them. Skip to content. How are they created, and why do they look so beautiful? Like this: Like Loading Thousands of planetary nebulae have now been catalogued in external galaxies as far away as million light years away.

Planetary nebulae have been extensively used as standard candles to determine the age and size of the Universe Jacoby By tracking the velocity patterns of planetary nebulae in galaxies, astronomers can also map out the distribution of dark matter in galaxies. The optical spectra of planetary nebulae show emission lines of many heavy elements, many of which recently synthesized by nuclear processes during the preceding asymptotic giant branch phase.

Planetary nebulae therefore are regarded as important agents in the spread of heavy elements in the Galaxy. Recent observations by infrared and millimeter-wave telescopes have found that planetary nebulae contain, in addition to atoms, molecules and solid-state particles.

In fact, some planetary nebulae emit most of their energy from their solid-state component in the form of far infrared radiation. Gas-phase molecules can be identified through their rotational or vibrational transitions and solid-state particles through their lattice vibrational modes.

Most interestingly, planetary nebulae are found to contain complex organic compounds of aromatic and aliphatic structures Figure 5. Comparison of the spectra of planetary nebulae at different stages of evolution show that these compounds are synthesized quickly over timescales of the order of hundreds of years Kwok How such organic matter is made and what effect it has e. Sun Kwok , Scholarpedia, 2 9 Jump to: navigation , search. Post-publication activity Curator: Sun Kwok Contributors:.

Garrelt Mellema. Benjamin Bronner. Sponsored by: Dr. Namespaces Page Discussion. Views Read View source View history. Astronomers are drawn to study these objects because they provide opportunities to analyze material that was once a part of a shining star. For example, by studying the chemical composition of the nebula we can gain an understanding about the material out of which the star originally formed.

In addition, the abundances of certain elements such as carbon and nitrogen in the nebula reveal details about the physical processes that occurred within the star during its nuclear fusion lifetime.

Studying planetary nebulae helps us to understand how a star changes, or evolves, during its lifetime. But why and how does a planetary nebula form in the first place?