          APOD: 2017 October 28 - NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                2017 October 28
                                      [2]
                      NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula
              Image Credit: Hubble Heritage Team [3] , NASA [4]

Explanation: Wraithlike NGC 6369 [5]  is a faint apparition in night skies
popularly known as the Little Ghost Nebula. It was discovered by 18th century
astronomer Sir William Herschel [6]  as he used a telescope to explore the
medicinal constellation Ophiucus [7] . Herschel historically classified the
round and planet-shaped nebula as a Planetary Nebula. But planetary nebulae
[8]  in general are not at all related to planets. Instead they are gaseous
shrouds created at the end of a sun-like star's life, the dying star's outer
layers expanding into space while its core shrinks to become a white dwarf.
The transformed white dwarf star [9] , seen near the center, radiates strongly
at ultraviolet wavelengths and powers the expanding nebula's glow.
Surprisingly complex details [10]  and structures of NGC 6369 are revealed in
this tantalizing image [11] composed from Hubble Space Telescope data. The
nebula's main round structure is about a light-year across [12] 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 [13]
offers a glimpse of the fate of our Sun, which could produce its own planetary
nebula about 5 billion years from now.

                      Tomorrow's picture: vent world [14]

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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [26] (MTU [27] ) & Jerry Bonnell [28]
                                  (UMCP [29] )
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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1710/NGC6369LittleGhostHST.jpg
  [3] http://heritage.stsci.edu/commonpages/infoindex/ourproject/
moreproject.html
  [4] http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html
  [5] http://heritage.stsci.edu/2002/25/caption.html
  [6] https://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/herschel/ fwhershs.html
  [7] http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/oph/index.html
  [8] http://www.messier.seds.org/planetar.html
  [9] https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/ dwarfs2.html
  [10] http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/
nph-bib_query?1997ApJ...487..304H&db_key=AST&nosetcookie=1
  [11] http://heritage.stsci.edu/2002/25/caption.html
  [12] http://heritage.stsci.edu/2002/25/fast_facts.html
  [13] http://hubblesite.org/image/1251/category/112-hubble-heritage
  [14] ap171029.html
  [15] ap171027.html
  [16] archivepix.html
  [17] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [18] lib/aptree.html
  [19] http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [20] calendar/allyears.html
  [21] /apod.rss
  [22] lib/edlinks.html
  [23] lib/about_apod.html
  [24] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=171028
  [25] ap171029.html
  [26] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [27] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [28] http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [29] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [30] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [31] http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [32] http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
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