Copyright:ESA/Hubble &
NASA,
B. Balick
(U. Washington)
中文翻譯:
你有沒有想過如果能打開太陽會是什麼樣子呢？蛋星雲（Egg Nebula）是一顆快要老去的類太陽恆星，幫我們解答了這個問題。這是由哈勃太空望遠鏡拍攝的多幅可見光和紅外光影像的組合。這顆恆星已經脫去了外層，現在有一個明亮熱乎乎的核心（就像蛋黃一樣）在照亮周圍的「蛋白」氣體和塵埃。中央的泡狀結構和環狀物是最近被推掉的氣體和塵埃，而這些塵埃密度足以遮住我們看見恆星核心的視線。從這個被遮住的核心中發出的光束，透過老的被推掉物質中的小洞冒出來，這些小洞是被新的、更快的噴射物質從恆星的兩極所開凿出的。天文學家們仍在努力研究在這段短暫（只有幾千年！）的恆星演化階段中，盤片、泡狀物和噴射物質是如何形成的，讓這幅影像成為研究的絕佳材料！
原文:
ver wonder what it would look like to crack open the Sun? The Egg Nebula, a dying Sun-like star, can unscramble this question. Pictured is a combination of several visible and infrared images of the nebula (also known as RAFGL 2688 or CRL 2688) taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The star has shed its outer layers, and a bright, hot core (or “yolk”) now illuminates the milky “egg white” shells of gas and dust surrounding the center. The central lobes and rings are structures of gas and dust recently ejected into space, with the dust being dense enough to block our view of the stellar core. Light beams emanate from that blocked core, escaping through holes carved in the older ejected material by newer, faster jets expelled from the star’s poles. Astronomers are still trying to figure out what causes the disks, lobes, and jets during this short (only a few thousand years!) phase of the star’s evolution, making this an egg-cellent image to study!
來源:NASA每日圖片
