tytower

APOD: 2008 June 17- Eta Carinae and the Homunculus Nebula

The above gave me food for thought . an explosion at the center caused this I think . It was unresticted by the effects of any near strong gravity so like an out going radio wave from a dipole it moves from the center out in a double mushroom shape.

The material expelled is gas and dust of the original material but the light we see is interesting . This is a composite picture but light leaving the central explosion has gone and passed us by now or we would not be able to see it. So what do we see in the light spectrum ? is it reflected light from somewhere else.

Is it a continuing outpouring of light from some object within the mushrooms. Is it some slower moving light held up in some way . Is it bent round a few black holes on the way as some like to beleive.

The central plane also seems to have rays of something coming out on that plane like rays of sunshine?

trash

You've got a case of mental dyspepsia Tytower.
Didn't your old man tell you to chew you food before attempting to digest it ?

There isn't anything special about the light we see.
The object inside the mushroom clouds is the star itself. It's not a supernova, but rather an irregular nova. The star has not destroyed itself, rather just shed an outter shell for some reason.

The first kind is just the latent glow from the nova itself. Heat up a piece of metal in a fire, and take it out, it still glows in the visible spectrum from quite some time after the heat source is removed.
The gas in the nebula is the same thing except the gas is a glowing plasma more like a candle than a bar of hot steel.

The second is just the star lighting up the gas and dust like the sun lights up a cloud. It's nothing but reflected light, where there is less light because of absorbtion we see the filaments. Like the grey underside of a cloud.

The third kind of light is also a plasma from excited gas, but not from the latent heat of the ejecta. The star provides the energy for the glowing gas, again, in the same way a neon sign or a laser or an aurora.

The question is, if you read the text with the pretty picture, What caused the star to form this interesting nebula ?

bulbous

The ancients also wondered about the universe and its bright and sparkly bits.

Because they too could not understand it they invented such silliness as astrology, gods and religion, and we are are now stuck with such rubbish because some people refuse to dismiss such ancient myths.

The shape in the photo is most obviously caused by the explosion of the brain of a babel fish, which has been instructed to translate a religious tract - which of course cannot be translated with any degree of accuracy. In protest at its enforced embarrassment the babel fish has exploded itself along the plane of its brainwave matrix, showing clearly the orbits of its eyes and its optic nerve channels. It certainly look surprised !

I could start a much more believable - or even likely - religion than any of those started by bronze-age goatherders....join me now in song....and then we can slaughter some innocents and go out on the town for a wee bit of tithing. I don't suppose anyone knows of any virgins - nah, didn't think so.

I know this because I am a pisces....apparently ! .

intelliGEORGE

You're all wrong, it's an aerial photo of some poor animals testicles taken in mid explosion after a firecracker went off up in it's butt (black) hole.

tytower

Not necessary was it. The Viagara was a joke by the way not a slur.

Hmm ..We dont know if anything survives after a "normal" supernova anyway do we? If material is also imploded in the explosion then there may still be a small black hole for instance. Likely not but possible.
If a shell is exploded out is there some known phenomenen which might cause this. That implies there is a change in something inside a star at a spherical level and the sphere above that level is ejected outwards but from the picture we can see that it is ejected out on a polar axis rather than a sperical ball shaped output. What force would form it into two mushrooms?

I don't see the difference between the third and the first as you assert. What inerested me were the apparent purple rays in the picture and why they are visible on what appears to be a disk of space only?

Well yes I read it and thats what I am discussing am I not?

I like bulbous's explanation and agree we should now all bow down to the babel fish .We can say with definate certainty that our religion is the correct one and defy any other religion to prove otherwise .It has decided tax advantages. Do we get to the virgins after that?

trash

Oh, you're no fun anymore. That post was good !

The star has a magnetic field, just like the earth does.
The gas is actually a plasma and is charged. If you apply the left hand FBI rule (F=force B=Magnetic Flux I=current) to the expanding nebula, it causes the particles to move at right angles to lines of magnetic flux. A bit like the pattern you get when you put iron filings near a magnet. The pattern is different because the gas ions need to be moving to be effected and they also need to be charged. If the gas were just unexcited helium atoms, the nebula would just look like any old omni explosion expanding out in all directions.

Trying to simplify it, as the charged particles move, their path forms an arc because the magnetic field from the star effects them.

Again, there are other examples of similar things that are easier to observe.
When the sun shines from behind a cloud or a hill, you can see the rays from the sun. It's the sun lighting up the dust in the atmosphere.
The star is obscured by the nebula, but the rays from it can be see as they light up particles in space.
Why they're a purple colour I'm not sure. A spectrometer would help determine that.

I don't have a sensible answer as to why a star would shed material like that. First guess is another passing star, but it external causes would cause an asymetrical pattern in the nebula. So the cause is most likely internal to the star.
I would think it was an inversion layer in the star that has trapped enough energy to cause the layer to go nova. This ejects the outter layers while the deeper layers of the star continue to function normally. As the outter layer is ejected, it's like taking the lid off a pressure cooker. Not enough to cause a big explosion, but rather just enough to spray the veges all over the kitchen ceiling.

That's just an uneducated guess.

osiris777

I could start a much more believable - or even likely - religion than any of those started by bronze-age goatherders....join me now in song....and then we can slaughter some innocents and go out on the town for a wee bit of tithing. I don't suppose anyone knows of any virgins - nah, didn't think so.

I know this because I am a pisces....apparently ! . [/quote]

praise be to Bulbous!
now ill grab my sword and we can get on with this slaughter

__________________
...In Somnis Veritas...

trash

There's only one true god, and it's me

Prayer is the last refuge of a scoundral.

osiris777

trash is a false god and must be beheaded and his head piked as a deterant to all who oppose.

__________________
...In Somnis Veritas...

trash

I must be a false god because I exist.

Can't denounce an imaginary god.