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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday May 19 2018, @06:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the incoming-solar-sail? dept.

An international team of astronomers have discovered an unusual laser emission that suggests the presence of a double star system hidden at the heart of the "spectacular" Ant Nebula.

The extremely rare phenomenon is connected to the death of a star and was discovered in observations made by European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel space observatory.

When low- to middleweight stars like our Sun approach the end of their lives they eventually become dense, white dwarf stars. In the process, they cast off their outer layers of gas and dust into space, creating a kaleidoscope of intricate patterns known as a planetary nebula. Our Sun is expected to one day form such a planetary nebula.

A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases. The Ant Nebula earns its nickname from the twin lobes that resemble the head and body of an ant.

The recent Herschel observations have shown that the dramatic demise of the central star in the core of the Ant Nebula is even more theatrical than implied by its colourful appearance in visible images -- such as those taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The new data shows that the Ant Nebula also beams intense laser emission from its core. Lasers are well-known down on earth in everyday life, from special visual effects in music concerts to health care and communications. In space, laser emission is detected at very different wavelengths and only under certain conditions. Only a few of these infrared space lasers are known.

By coincidence, astronomer Donald Menzel who first observed and classified this particular planetary nebula in the 1920s (it is officially known as Menzel 3 after him) was also one of the first to suggest that in certain conditions natural 'light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation' -- from which the acronym 'laser' derives -- could occur in nebulae in space. This was well before the discovery of lasers in laboratories.


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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @04:07PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @04:07PM (#681592)

    "Them!" with lasers.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @03:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @03:17AM (#681756)

    Just shoot for the antennae - they're helpless without them.