APOD: NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula (2012 Jan 14)

[APOD Robot]

NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula

Explanation: This pretty planetary nebula, cataloged as NGC 6369, was discovered by 18th century astronomer William Herschel as he used a telescope to explore the medicinal constellation Ophiucus. Round and planet-shaped, the nebula is also relatively faint and has acquired the popular moniker of Little Ghost Nebula. Planetary nebulae in general are not at all related to planets, but instead are created at the end of a sun-like star's life as its outer layers expand into space while the star's core shrinks to become a white dwarf. The transformed white dwarf star, seen near the center, radiates strongly at ultraviolet wavelengths and powers the expanding nebula's glow. Surprisingly complex details and structures of NGC 6369 are revealed in this tantalizing image composed from Hubble Space Telescope data. The nebula's main ring structure is about a light-year across and the glow from ionized oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen atoms are colored blue, green, and red respectively. Over 2,000 light-years away, the Little Ghost Nebula offers a glimpse of the fate of our Sun, which could produce its own planetary nebula only about 5 billion years from now.

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[islader2]

Last posted as APOD Nov 8, 2002. Looks as good as ever.

[Beyond]

The Little Ghost Nebula = Casper, the friendly ghost.

[saturn2]

The planetary nebula is the end of a star.
The end of our Sun will be in 5 billion years from now.
IThe life on the Earth has many time in the future. Very well.

[orin stepanek]

Cute nebula; but I don't see that it looks anything like a ghost! I never seen what a ghost looks like; so who am I to argue.

[Bulwersator]

Hm, it looks like a copy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap021108.html

[owlice]

Q4: Have some APOD pictures been run more than once?
A4: Yes. Many of our readers have been with us less than a year and are unaware of some really spectacular or important astronomy pictures. New information about old pictures is becoming available over the WWW. The text and links for rerun pictures will make use of this newly available information. So although the picture might be old, some of the text and links of each APOD will be new. Also, more web surfers have larger bandwidth connections, which allows us to post higher-resolution image files that can be transferred conveniently. Software to handle more sophisticated image file formats has also become more common, so the picture's size and/or format might be new. Lastly, rerunning APODs saves us time and helps us update our archive. In general, our rerun policy currently is to only rerun APODs more than one year old to keep the pictures relatively "new" to new APOD viewers. We will almost never rerun more than two pictures in any given week. So when you load the current APOD,it is still, most probably, a new picture.

Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap_faq.html

[Chris Peterson]

The planetary nebula is the end of a star.
The end of our Sun will be in 5 billion years from now.
IThe life on the Earth has many time in the future. Very well.

Yes, but "only" a few hundred million years until our climate becomes quite problematic for most complex animals. The Earth will become uninhabitable (as we generally understand the term) long before the Sun flames out.

[GTF]

Nice nebula, but;

The link behind 'NGC 6369' takes you to here:
http://rao.150m.com/NGC6369.html
All good so far.

But the link on that page behind 'Click here for an HST image' is suppose to take you to:
http://www.blackskies.com/images/hst_images/ngc6369.jpg
But instead keeps taking me to Casino Online

Really annoying.

[owlice]

That's an external site -- not an APOD site -- and apparently has been taken over/compromised. I'll let TPTB know; thanks for the alert.

[Ann]

Since today's APOD is a golden oldie, it could be that tomorrow's picture will be new.

But whether the picture is new or old, it will likely feature a large but Small celestial bar with an attached wing that is named after a European circumnavigator who spotted this structure around five hundred years ago.

If this circumnavigator had been some three hundred years younger (and if he had spoken English), he could have repeated Samuel Coleridge's lament: Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.

Ann

[biddie67]

The planetary nebula is the end of a star.
The end of our Sun will be in 5 billion years from now.
IThe life on the Earth has many time in the future. Very well.

Yes, but "only" a few hundred million years until our climate becomes quite problematic for most complex animals. The Earth will become uninhabitable (as we generally understand the term) long before the Sun flames out.

This kind of statement rattles my primal senses. We already know the long range future of this wonderful Earth. The search for inhabitable worlds and our so-far primitive struggle to develop the technology to reach one/some of those worlds is also already under way.

And what kind of "terra forming" would be necessary?? And how long would it take before people could safely and openly settle there??

If these elements come into being, what will the selective process be to include as many different types of people (hopefully stable and constructive types) to allow for a healthy genetic pool ??

And what complex animals (and maybe some not so complex) and plants would be included in that future "noah's" armada of transports? (Hopefully more than one transport would make it safely to the newly prepared world.)

[Tszabeau]

what will the selective process be to include as many different types of people (hopefully stable and constructive types) to allow for a healthy genetic pool ??

The ability to jump VERY high.

[Chris Peterson]

This kind of statement rattles my primal senses. We already know the long range future of this wonderful Earth. The search for inhabitable worlds and our so-far primitive struggle to develop the technology to reach one/some of those worlds is also already under way.

And what kind of "terra forming" would be necessary?? And how long would it take before people could safely and openly settle there??

I'm not sure it matters. The length of time involved is much longer than any species has existed on Earth. The reality is that there will not be any humans (homo sapiens) by then- we will be extinct, or radically changed. What works for us now most likely won't then. So there's no point in finding other places to live just to escape Earth's ultimate fate. Indeed, if we did colonize other planets- regardless of how we terraformed them- there would almost certainly be nothing left in a few hundred million years resembling the original colonists, and whatever there was would be a distinctly different species from the colonists on other worlds.

[starstruck]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Thought provoking words from biddie67 . . and whether for those reasons, or for reasons of resource depletion or climate change, hopefully those issues could be resolved long before it became a reality for future generations; that said, I would be concerned that human nature might not be able to evolve 'quickly' enough to meet the challenges you pose, regardless of technological advancements.

Nothing to do with the Little Ghost Nebula, but your post reminds me of the film Silent Running, as well as this completely unrelated old Daredevils song . . .

[Flase]

I'm not sure it matters. The length of time involved is much longer than any species has existed on Earth. The reality is that there will not be any humans (homo sapiens) by then- we will be extinct, or radically changed. What works for us now most likely won't then. So there's no point in finding other places to live just to escape Earth's ultimate fate.

Unless the authorities standardise an idealised genome where any embryo found with defects is tweaked to fit conventional limits. Of course such a regime might not last 100 million years.

Indeed, if we did colonize other planets- regardless of how we terraformed them- there would almost certainly be nothing left in a few hundred million years resembling the original colonists, and whatever there was would be a distinctly different species from the colonists on other worlds.

Does that mean that marrying a colonist from Mars, say, would be like mating with a monkey? No don't answer that. That was a joke. I would never want to contribute to a forum that promotes monkey porn.

To come back to the topic, what would it really be like to fly a spaceship close to a planetary nebula like this? Would it be as striking up close to the naked eye or does it take serious processing to make it look good? How dense would the cloud be to fly through? Would the stellar wind be extreme or are the distances so big you barely notice?

[islader2]

@ ORIN STEPANIK Okay, Orin, turn in your solon badge. The nebula looks ghostly through a primitive telescope. IMHO, you should know that with all the posts you have contributed==many of them outstanding. {We solons==albeit self-appointed==need to look and to sound sharp.}

[FloridaMike]

Cute nebula; but I don't see that it looks anything like a ghost! I never seen what a ghost looks like; so who am I to argue.

Where the heck is Neufer? A comment like this is usually his cue...

[orin stepanek]

@ ORIN STEPANIK Okay, Orin, turn in your solon badge. The nebula looks ghostly through a primitive telescope. IMHO, you should know that with all the posts you have contributed==many of them outstanding. {We solons==albeit self-appointed==need to look and to sound sharp.}

Darn; you made me google solon! No help there as solon hast too many references! Any way; sorry no badge! You really think it looks like a ghost?

[TNT]

Where the heck is Neufer? A comment like this is usually his cue...

We don't really know...

Darn; you made me google solon! No help there as solon hast too many references! Any way; sorry no badge! You really think it looks like a ghost?

It looks nothing like a ghost to me!

[Flase]

Maybe you mean Mehendri Solon, the Dr Who mad scientist in the story The Brain of Morbius who wanted the Doctor's head for an experiment?

In the end, Morbius had to make do with a plastic bubble for a head with funny trumpet eyes, but that still didn't curb his aspirations to rule the Universe.

Handsome fellow, isn't he?