page_title: Stingray Nebula
hierarchical_section_title: Stingray Nebula
caption_attribution_description: English: This Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 image captures the infancy of the Stingray nebula (Hen-1357), the youngest known planetary nebula.In this image, the bright central star is in the middle of the green ring of gas. Its companion star is diagonally above it at 10 o'clock. A spur of gas (green) is forming a faint bridge to the companion star due to gravitational attraction. The image also shows a ring of gas (green) surrounding the central star, with bubbles of gas to the lower left and upper right of the ring. The wind of material propelled by radiation from the hot central star has created enough pressure to blow open holes in the ends of the bubbles, allowing gas to escape. The red curved lines represent bright gas that is heated by a "shock" caused when the central star's wind hits the walls of the bubbles. The nebula is as large as 130 solar systems, but, at its distance of 18,000 light-years, it appears only as big as a dime viewed a mile away. The Stingray is located in the direction of the southern constellation Ara (the Altar). The colors shown are actual colors emitted by nitrogen (red), oxygen (green), and hydrogen (blue).
context_page_description: The Stingray Nebula is the youngest known planetary nebula. The Stingray is located in the direction of the southern constellation
  Ara, and is located 18,000 light-years away. Although it is some 130 times the size of the Solar System, the Stingray Nebula is only about 1/10 the size of most other known planetary nebulae. Until approximately forty years ago, it was observed on Earth as a protoplanetary nebula in which the gas had not yet become hot and ionized. In a Nature article, Bobrowsky et al. described how the Hubble observations revealed a 17th-magnitude companion to the Stingray's 15th-magnitude central star. The image of the Stingray Nebula shown here shows how the outer shells of gas are collimating the continuing outflow of gas from the central star—an important observation, as the process of how these outflows become collimated has not been well understood.
context_section_description: The Stingray Nebula (Hen 3-1357) is the youngest known planetary nebula (PN). (Bobrowsky 1994)  The Stingray is located in the direction of the southern constellation
  Ara (the Altar), and is located 18,000 light-years away.  Although it is some 130 times the size of the Solar System, the Stingray Nebula is only about 1/10 the size of most other known planetary nebulae. Until approximately forty years ago, it was observed on Earth as a protoplanetary nebula in which the gas had not yet become hot and ionized.  In a Nature article, Bobrowsky et al. described how the Hubble observations revealed a 17th-magnitude companion to the Stingray's 15th-magnitude central star.  The image of the Stingray Nebula shown here shows how the outer shells of gas are collimating the continuing outflow of gas from the central star—an important observation, as the process of how these outflows become collimated has not been well understood.
caption: Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the nebula (Credit: M. Bobrowsky and NASA)
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