Chandra Finds Hot Bubble in Planetary Nebula IC 4593:
Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have spotted a bubble of ultrahot gas at the center of a planetary nebula called IC 4593.
IC 4593 is located approximately 7,800 light-years away in the constellation of Hercules.
Also known as HD 145649 or IRAS 16093+1211, this object is the farthest planetary nebula detected in X-rays by Chandra.
Its hot bubble is one of the smallest among planetary nebulae, besides BD+30 3639, IC 418, and NGC 7027.
It contains gas that has been heated to over a million degrees.
[...] In addition to the hot gas, the researchers also found evidence for point-like X-ray source at the center of IC 4593.
This X-ray emission has higher energies than the bubble of hot gas.
The point source could be from the star that discarded its outer layers to form the planetary nebula or it could be from a possible companion star in this system.
"Deeper X-ray observations are needed to confirm the presence of an X-ray-emitting central star in IC 4593 and to characterize its nature," the scientists said.
Journal Reference:
J A Toalá, M A Guerrero, L Bianchi, et al. Chandra observations of the planetary nebula IC 4593, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 494, Issue 3, May 2020, Pages 3784–3789, DOI:10.1093/mnras/staa1024
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2020, @09:45AM
Planetary nebulae are among the more interesting deep sky objects. For one thing, they give a clue as to the fate of our own Sol. And they are rather transient objects, only lasting some tens of thousands of years. This one, with superheated gasses, is particularly interesting. And it reminds that Hubble is not the only space telescope in operation.