Observations unveil an ionized halo of planetary nebula IC 5148

Using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have performed observations of the planetary nebula IC 5148. The new study, described in a paper published October 2 on the arXiv pre-print server, unveils the presence of IC 5148 ionized halo and provides fundamental parameters of its central star.

Planetary nebulae (PNe) are expanding shells of gas and dust that have been ejected from a star during the process of its evolution from main sequence star into a red giant or white dwarf. They are relatively rare, but important for astronomers studying the chemical evolution of stars and galaxies. Although IC 5148, a round planetary nebula, was discovered in 1894, it is still not well investigated in detail. The nebula is located in the constellation of Grus, some 3,000 light years away from the Earth. With an expansion rate of about 50 km/s, it is one of the fastest planetary nebulae known to date.

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Credit: Barría et al., 2018.

The [O iii] image of the halo region of IC 5148: Left: after masking the main nebula and removing a Gaussian shaped decline representing the normal halo intensity distribution. Right: same image with two circles centered exactly at the CSPN at 115 and 128''.

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A planetary nebula is a phase of stellar evolution that the sun should experience several billion years from now, when it expands to become a red giant.