RPM Challenge 2015 Part IV: Twin Jet

Twin Jet Nebula in 2012

Track 3 from Impossible Universe -- Twin Jet.

When I first saw this image of the Twin Jet Nebula (also known as the Butterfly or Wings of a Butterfly Nebula), I wondered what it was; I'd never seen anything like it before.

I found out that William Herschel discovered the first one in the 1780s and dubbed it a planetary nebula, since the center of what he was seeing in his telescope looked like a planet. Modern science has shown that "planetary nebula" is a misnomer, but because Herschel's name for these astronomical phenomena was widely adopted, it's never been changed. (1)

Twin Jet is 2,100 light-years away, in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. Astronomers estimate that Twin Jet is about 1200 years old.

But what causes the twin jets? Well, planetary nebulae are formed when a star is at the end of its life. It sheds it outer layers, and the exposed star core illuminates these layers.

Twin Jet Nebula in 1997

But wait, there's more! The unique colors and shape of Twin Jet Nebula's two jets are because...there's actually two stars there! Twin Jet is actually a bipolar nebula, and the jets are caused by the motion of the two stars around each other.

The blue areas on either side of the binary star system are actually jets of gas being violently shot into space at an estimated 620,000 miles per hour. (2)

If there was sound in space (which there isn't), I imagine that the Twin Jet nebula might sound like the beginning of its namesake track from Impossible Universe...



(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_nebula
(2) https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1518/