{"id":188506,"date":"2013-03-25T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"7e7baf224fc0e0461c0c81fa28cd2418"},"modified":"2013-03-25T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-25T11:00:00","slug":"masquerading-as-a-double-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=188506","title":{"rendered":"Masquerading as a double star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2013\/03\/masquerading_as_a_double_star\/12592938-1-eng-GB\/Masquerading_as_a_double_star_small.jpg\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\nThe object in this image is Jonckheere 900 or J 900, a planetary nebula \u2014 glowing shells of ionised gas pushed out by a dying star. Discovered in the early 1900s by astronomer Robert Jonckheere, the dusty nebula is small but fairly bright, with a relatively evenly spread central region surrounded by soft wispy edges.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nDespite the clarity of this Hubble image, the two objects in the picture above can be confusing for observers. J 900\u2019s nearby companion, a faint star in the constellation of Gemini, often causes problems for observers because it is so close to the nebula \u2014 when seeing conditions are bad, this star seems to merge into J 900, giving it an elongated appearance. Hubble\u2019s position above the Earth\u2019s atmosphere means that this is not an issue for the space telescope.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAstronomers have also mistakenly reported observations of a double star in place of these two objects, as the planetary nebula is quite small and compact.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nJ 900\u2019s central star is only just visible in this image, and is very faint \u2014 fainter than the nebula\u2019s neighbour. The nebula appears to display a bipolar structure, where there are two distinct lobes of material emanating from its centre, enclosed by a bright oval disc.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nA version of this image was entered into the Hubble\u2019s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Josh Barrington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2013\/03\/masquerading_as_a_double_star\/12592938-1-eng-GB\/Masquerading_as_a_double_star_small.jpg\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\nThe object in this image is Jonckheere 900 or J 900, a planetary nebula \u2014 glowing shells of ionised gas pushed out by a dying star. Discovered in the early 1900s by astronomer Robert Jonckheere, the dusty nebula is small but fairly bright, with a relatively evenly spread central region surrounded by soft wispy edges.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nDespite the clarity of this Hubble image, the two objects in the picture above can be confusing for observers. J 900\u2019s nearby companion, a faint star in the constellation of Gemini, often causes problems for observers because it is so close to the nebula \u2014 when seeing conditions are bad, this star seems to merge into J 900, giving it an elongated appearance. Hubble\u2019s position above the Earth\u2019s atmosphere means that this is not an issue for the space telescope.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAstronomers have also mistakenly reported observations of a double star in place of these two objects, as the planetary nebula is quite small and compact.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nJ 900\u2019s central star is only just visible in this image, and is very faint \u2014 fainter than the nebula\u2019s neighbour. The nebula appears to display a bipolar structure, where there are two distinct lobes of material emanating from its centre, enclosed by a bright oval disc.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nA version of this image was entered into the Hubble\u2019s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Josh Barrington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=188506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=188506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=188506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=188506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}