Photo of the day: a planetary nebula interacting with the interstellar medium
The Hubble Space Telescope has transmitted to Earth a snapshot of another object in the vastness of the Universe. An image released by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shows the planetary nebula designated ESO 455-10.
Structures of this type are a shell of ionized gas around the central star – a white dwarf. Planetary nebulae form when a star like the Sun develops all of its “fuel”, swells and sheds its outer layers into the surrounding space.
ESO 455-10 is interesting in that it shows signs of interaction with the interstellar medium. This is the substance and fields that fill the interstellar space inside galaxies: the medium consists of dust, gas, cosmic rays, electromagnetic disturbances, and hypothetical dark matter.
Planetary nebula ESO 455-10 is located in the constellation Scorpio, which is located in our Milky Way. Note also that planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. This definition is historically related to how such objects look in a small telescope.
