A planetary nebula called Kronberger 61, or Kn61, has been discovered on NASA’s Kepler mission, and may help solve the question of whether stellar companions are key in the formation of such nebulae.
The purpose of Kepler’s planet finding mission is to determine the number and frequency of habitable Earth-sized planets orbiting sun-like stars.
“Kn 61 is among a rather small collection of planetary nebulae that are strategically placed within Kepler’s gaze,” said co-author Orsola de Marco from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, in a press release.
“Explaining the puffs left behind when medium sized stars like our sun expel their last breaths is a source of heated debate among astronomers, especially the part that companions might play,” he added. “It literally keeps us up at night!”
Planetary nebulae form from residual dust and gas left over after stars exhaust their hydrogen fuel. This shell expands and cools down, forming a certain shape which could be influenced by companion stars or planets.
The formation was discovered by Austrian amateur astronomer Matthias Kronberger, and was presented at the International Astronomical Union Symposium: “Planetary Nebulae: an Eye to the Future” in Spain’s Canary Islands.
“Without this close collaboration with amateurs, this discovery would probably not have been made before the end of the Kepler mission,” said George Jacoby of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization and the Carnegie Observatories in California in the release.
“Professionals, using precious telescope time, aren’t as flexible as amateurs, who did this using existing data and in their spare time,” he added. “This was a fantastic pro-am collaboration of discovery.”
