Scientists have revealed some of the sharpest images ever taken by ESO's Very Large Telescope, some of which display what appears to be a "celestial butterfly."
These stunning images actually show an aging star giving birth to a butterfly-like nebula, the European Space Agency (ESO) reported. The image contains the red giant star L2 Puppis, which resides about 200 light-years away and is one of the closest red giants to Earth.
The images were made possible by the ZIMPOL mode of the newly-installed SPHERE instrument. The instrument employs adaptive optics that can reveal faint objects near bright sources of light by correcting the images to a high degree.
The findings show the dust that surrounds L2 Puppis is being formed into a disc that begins about 900 million kilometres from the star, which is slightly farther than the distance from the Sun to Jupiter. The team also discovered a second light source that appears to be a younger companion star. This is the type of system that would be expected to create a bipolar planetary nebula. The disc appears to be flared in a funnel-like shape
"The origin of bipolar planetary nebulae is one of the great classic problems of modern astrophysics, especially the question of how, exactly, stars return their valuable payload of metals back into space - an important process, because it is this material that will be used to produce later generations of planetary systems," said lead author Pierre Kervella.
The research revealed two cones of material rising out of the disc encompassing two slow-moving plumes. The researchers believe these origin of one of these plumes is the interaction between the material from L2 Puppis and the companions star's wind and radiation pressure, while the other's may be the collision between the stellar winds from the two stars or an accretion disc . The new observations suggest these processes could give birth to a butterfly nebula.
"With the companion star orbiting L2 Puppis only every few years, we expect to see how the companion star shapes the red giant's disc. It will be possible to follow the evolution of the dust features around the star in real time - an extremely rare and exciting prospect."
