The Eskimo Nebula from Hubble and Chandra
In 1787,
astronomer William Herschel discovered the Eskimo Nebula. From the ground, NGC 2392 resembles a person's head surrounded
by a parka hood.
In 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged the Eskimo Nebula in visible light, while the nebula
was imaged in X-rays by the Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2007.
The combined visible-X ray image, with X-rays emitted by central hot gas and
shown in pink, was released last week.
From space, the nebula displays gas clouds so complex they are not fully understood. The Eskimo Nebula is clearly a planetary nebula, and the gas seen above composed the outer
layers of a Sun-like star only 10,000 years ago.
The inner
filaments visible above are being ejected by strong wind of particles from the central star. The
outer disk contains unusual light-year long orange filaments.
The Eskimo Nebula spans about 1/3 of a light year and lies in our Milky Way Galaxy, about 3,000 light years distant, toward the constellation of the
Twins (Gemini).
