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YOUNG or OLD?
Nature sometimes produces similar
looking objects from different processes. These
are examples of objects with similar appearances,
but at very different stages of stellar evolution
than Gomez's Hamburger. The stars at the center
of these nebulas in these images are cooler than
the Sun and are in regions where new stars are
being born. Thus these are almost certainly examples
of a young star surrounded by a disk of material
from which planets may form. They are at the beginning
of their lifetime. These are in contrast to Gomez's
Hamburger - a nebula forming at the last stages
of the central object's lifetime.
*These young stellar objects
appeared on February
9, 1999 on STScI's Press Release Site*
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This Wide Field and Planetary Camera
2 (WFPC2) image shows Herbig-Haro 30 (HH
30), the prototype of a young star surrounded
by a thin, dark disk and emitting powerful
gaseous jets. The disk extends 40 billion
miles from left to right in the image, dividing
the nebula in two. The central star is hidden
from direct view, but its light reflects
off the upper and lower surfaces of the
disk to produce the pair of reddish nebulae.
The gas jets are shown in green.
Credit: Chris Burrows
(STScI), the WFPC2 Science Team and NASA
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Haro 6-5B - This image of the young star
Haro 6-5B shows two bright regions separated
by a dark lane. As seen in the WFPC2 image
of the same object, the bright regions represent
starlight reflecting from the upper and
lower surfaces of the disk, which is thicker
at its edges than its center. However, the
infrared view reveals the young star just
above the dust lane.
Credit: D. Padgett
(IPAC/Caltech), W. Brandner (IPAC), K. Stapelfeldt
(JPL) and NASA |
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HK Tauri is the first example of a young
binary star system with an edge-on disk
around one member of the pair. The thin,
dark disk is illuminated by the light of
its hidden central star. The absence of
jets indicates that the star is not actively
accreting material from this disk. The disk
diameter is 20 billion miles. The brighter
primary star appears at top of the image.
Credit: Karl Stapelfeldt
(JPL) and colleagues, and NASA |
Several researchers have written
a scientific paper describing IRAS
18059-3211 (optically known as 'Gomez's Hambugrer').
This fairly technical article further explains
why Gomez's Hamburger is different than young
stellar objects.
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The end of a Sun-like star's life was once
thought to be simple: the star gracefully
casts off a shell of glowing gas and then
settles into a long retirement as a burned-out
white dwarf.
In this picture of M2-9, twin lobes of material
emanate from a central, dying star. Astronomers
have dubbed this object the "Twin Jet
Nebula" because of the shape of the
lobes. If the nebula is sliced across the
star, each side appears much like a pair
of exhausts from jet engines. |
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article by Barbara Wilson of George Observatory
observing Gomez's Hamburger
Title: The Search for Gomez's
Hamburger A Stop at a Hamburger Stand on
the way to the Restaurant at the end of
the Universe. (r.i.p. Douglas Adams)
Author's Note:
"10 years ago this month
I wrote an observing article about this
object (Deep Sky Journal #2 Autumn 1992)
and thought it would be fun to revisit this
challenging little object. Dana Lambert
and I imaged Gomez' Hamburger using the
36" at the George and the Star 1 CCD
camera. After I started to write this in
early June 2002, I learned that the Hubble
Space Telescope has imaged Gomez' Hamburger
for the Hubble Heritage Project."
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