Twinkle, Twinkle, Not a Star... Quiz

Answer: Horsehead Nebula

The Horsehead Nebula is a part of the more expansive Orion Nebula. It is quite iconic and popular for astronomers to take pictures of because it actually resembles a horse's head rearing up from a large cloud of dust. It is also known as Barnard 33 due to E. E. Barnard's cataloguing of it in 1919.

The "horse's head" of the nebula is actually a plume of dense gas blocking light from the ionized cloud of hydrogen particles behind it as well as the ambient light of nearby stars. Several new stars can be observed forming within this dark plume of gas.

Answer: Manatee Nebula

The Manatee Nebula, also known as W50, is a remnant from a supernova that happened about 20 thousand years ago. It resembles a manatee swimming through a sea of stars. At the center of this fascinating object is a binary system that consists of a likely black hole and an aging A-type star.

They orbit in such a way that they eclipse one another causing disruptions in each others' emissions creating a micro-quasar. They are, in fact, quite close (in astronomical terms) and their orbital period is a mere 13.1 days.

The star is actually losing material which is being pulled into the black hole. These two objects have pulled the supernova cloud into the elongated shape that is seen.

Answer: Double Helix Nebula

Near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy is this interesting nebula, the Double Helix Nebula. It resembles a DNA strand in space, only these gas plumes stretch out for about 80 light years! At the middle of our galaxy is a super-massive black hole about four million times the mass of the sun. This galaxy is a mere 300 light years from it. It is assumed that the magnetic and gravitational fields of the super-massive black hole are at least a thousand times stronger than those of the sun and that is why the gas from this nebula is getting sucked into it.

Don't worry, you are about 25,000 light years away from the center of the galaxy. You're not going to get sucked into it, well, not anytime soon.

Answer: Lemon Slice Nebula

Just like most stars in the universe are part of a binary or multi-star system, most planetary nebulae also have a companion star to the central white dwarf. However, in the case of IC 3568, it appears to be perfectly round without any disturbances meaning that no companion star is throwing off the gas cloud of the nebula.

It lies about 4500 light years away and can be found in the constellation of Camelopardalis with the us of a powerful telescope as it is quite faint.

Answer: Red Spider Nebula

NGC 6537 is a planetary nebula within the constellation of Sagittarius and near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. This is the remnant of a star that once shone there, and now all that remains is a white dwarf at the center and a suspected companion star, smaller in mass but likely larger in size (a white dwarf has the mass of our sun compacted into the area of the Earth as it is basically a mass of neutrons condensed together in a highly-massive blob).

This white dwarf is unique as it is one of the hottest white dwarf stars ever observed. Precise measurements are difficult to take because there this star sits within a dust cloud obscuring its true temperature.

Answer: Boomerang Nebula

Originally seen from an observatory near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia, this nebula was not initially seen clearly and was thought to have an asymmetric shape. Astronomers then named it the Boomerang Nebula and the name stuck even after Hubble images showed it to have a shape more like that of an hourglass.

As a protoplanetary nebula, the dust emitted by the central red dwarf is still accumulating. However, measurements at ALMA have astronomers to believe that a companion star crashed into the central star and this led to most of the star-matter being ejected from the main star in a cold plume that is even colder than the temperature of space. It is truly the coldest place in the universe.

Answer: Dumbbell Nebula

Found in the nearly invisible constellation of Vulpecula, the little fox, the Dumbbell Nebula is an interesting planetary nebula. It was the first of its kind to be observed by Charles Messier and he catalogued it as M27 back in 1764. In visible light this nebula resembles a dumbbell.

It actually is a disc of ionized particles that were emitted by a dying red giant star and are now being charged by the remnant white dwarf.

Answer: Cone Nebula

About 2700 light years away from Earth, the Cone Nebula is part of the greater Christmas Tree Structure. It is a place where protostars are observed, meaning, new stars are being formed in this nebula right now. It is found in the celestial equatorial constellation Monoceros but it is very hard to see with a telescope due to it being a "dark nebula".

This means that it is darker than the region around it and can be spotted only when the surrounding light is amplified and the nebula can be seen in contrast.

Answer: Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula is the first nebula that was associated with a specific supernova event. In the year 1054 CE a star was seen, which was so bright that it shone even in the daytime. Chinese astronomers called it a guest star but we now know it to be a supernova that occurred somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy. Now, with powerful telescopes, we can see what happens about a thousand years after a star goes "boom".

This was the first Messier object catalogued. Charles Messier was actually looking for Halley's comet when he came across the nebula. It was Edwin Hubble who proposed that this was the remnant of the 1054 CE supernova, but, at the time, his proposal was met with much skepticism. The name comes from an 1840 observation done by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse. He drew a picture of what he saw through his telescope and others remarked that it looked like a crab. The name stuck. At the center of the Crab Nebula is a neutron star, a remnant of the star that once shone there.

Answer: Cat's Eye Nebula

The Cat's Eye Nebula was discovered in 1786 by William Herschel. It was actually used as proof that nebulae are not stars; William Huggins examined the spectral lines emitted by this nebula and from several stars and saw that the nebular spectrum matches up more with a gas than with a solid star.

This nebula looks something like a cat's eye peeking through the cosmos at us. It is also known as NGC 6543 and Caldwell 6 and it can be found in the northern hemisphere near where the Earth's planetary axis currently is. It is north of the constellation Draco and is about 3,300 light years away from here.