Near-Perfect Symmetry Revealed in Red Cosmic Square

WoooW What a sight!!

Near-Perfect Symmetry Revealed in Red Cosmic Square

If symmetry is a sign of splendour, then the newly discovered Red Square nebula is one of the most beautiful objects in the universe.

Seen in the infrared, the nebula resembles a giant, glowing red box in the sky, with a bright white inner core. A dying star called MWC 922 is located at the system’s centre and spewing its innards from opposite poles into space. (A nebula is an interstellar cloud of gas, dust and plasma where stars can both emerge and die.)

“This spectacular event is the death of a star,” said study team member James Lloyd of Cornell University.

After MWC 922 ejects most of its material into space, it will contract into a dense stellar corpse known as a white dwarf, shrouded by clouds of its own remains.

The Red Square nebula discovery is detailed in the April 13 issue of the journal Science.

White Dwarfs are something I love to contemplate about... they are my 3rd most interesting stellar object after neutron stars and black holes.

It is commonly thought that the cores of white dwarf stars are in fact massive Diamonds!!

I wonder if I could make claims to one like Dennis Hope did the moon

All the best,

NeoN HaZe.

[edit on 17-4-2007 by Neon Haze]

Do you have any idea why it might be square (or cuboid, if that's what it is)? Some kind of magnetic field constraining the spread of ionized gas from the star?

Originally posted by Astyanax
Do you have any idea why it might be square (or cuboid, if that's what it is)? Some kind of magnetic field constraining the spread of ionized gas from the star?

The high degree of regularity in this case may point to the intriguing possibility that these bands are shadows cast by periodic ripples or waves on the surface of an inner disk close to the star at the heart of the system," Lloyd said.

The Red Square ranks among the most symmetrical objects ever observed by scientists. “If you fold things across the principle diagonal axis, you get an almost perfect reflection symmetry,” said study leader Peter Tuthill from the University of Sydney in Australia. “This makes the Red Square nebula the most symmetrical object of comparable complexity ever imaged.”

The Red Square’s extreme symmetry suggests the star’s surroundings are extremely still and not buffeted by external stellar winds or other turbulence.

The researchers propose that similar conditions are contributing to the extreme symmetry of another system, the Red Rectangle, whose central star is cooler than that of the Red Square.

As the star decays it undergoes enormous gravitational pressure that cause huge waves that ripple across the surface of the dieing star from pole to pole.

This is what gives the near symmetrical shape. Conditions have to be correct for this to happen though.

We have detected other box nebula such as the Red Rectangle, but non have been found as symmetrical as MWC 922.

The universe is all possibilities and if you look hard enough and long enough you will see it organise itself into amassing structures, all completely without intelligence to create or design them.

Glad you can admire the beauty

All the best,

NeoN HaZe.

The angle from which we see it is at a perfect right angle to the axis along which the star is shedding material. There are other examples which look like hourglasses because of the angle. We just happen to be seeing it side on. Seen from "above" (in the picture's frame of ref.) it would look circular. I think.