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Post Info TOPIC: Planetary nebula SuWt 2


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PN SuWt 2
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Title: On the possible triple central star system of PN SuWt 2: No ménage à trois at the heart of the Wedding Ring
Author: David Jones, Henri M.J. Boffin

SuWt 2 is a planetary nebula consisting of a bright ring-like waist from which protrude faint extended lobes - a morphology believed to be typical of progenitors which have experienced a close-binary evolution. Previous observations of NSV 19992, the star at the projected centre of SuWt 2, have found it to comprise two A-type stars in a 4.9 day eclipsing orbit, neither of which could be the nebular progenitor. Radial velocity studies provided a hint that the systemic velocity of this double A-type binary might be varying over time, suggesting the presence of a third component hypothesised to be the nebular progenitor. Here, we present an extensive radial velocity monitoring study of NSV 19992, performed with the high-resolution echelle spectrograph UVES mounted on ESO's VLT, in order to constrain the possible variation in the systemic velocity of the A-type binary and its relation to the progenitor of SuWt 2. The observations, acquired over a period of approximately one year, show no evidence of variability in the systemic velocity of NSV~19992. Combining these new observations with previous high-resolution spectroscopy demonstrates that the systemic velocity is also stable over much longer periods and, moreover, is distinct from that of SuWt 2, strongly indicating that the two are not associated. We conclude that NSV 19992 is merely a field star system, by chance lying in the same line of sight as the nebular centre, and that it bares no relation to SuWt 2 or its, as yet unidentified, central star(s).

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Posts: 131433
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SuWt 2
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Title: Kinematics of the ring-like nebula SuWt 2
Authors: D. Jones, M. Lloyd, D. L. Mitchell, D. L. Pollacco, T. J. O'Brien, N. M. H. Vaytet

We present the first detailed spatio-kinematical analysis and modelling of the Southern planetary nebula SuWt 2. This object presents a problem for current theories of planetary nebula formation and evolution, as it is not known to contain a central post-main sequence star. Our findings are discussed with relation to possible formation scenarios for SuWt 2.

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RE: Planetary nebula SuWt 2
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small_web.jpg
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Credit NASA

Position (2000):      R.A. 13h 55m 43s.23, Dec. -59° 22' 40".03

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Call it the case of the missing dwarf. A team of stellar astronomers is engaged in an interstellar CSI (crime scene investigation). They have two suspects, traces of assault and battery, but no corpse. The southern planetary nebula SuWt 2 is the scene of the crime, some 6,500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Centaurus. SuWt 2 consists of a bright, nearly edge-on glowing ring of gas. Faint lobes extend perpendicularly to the ring, giving the faintest parts of the nebula an hourglass shape. These glowing ejecta are suspected to have been energized by a star that has now burned out and collapsed to a white dwarf. But the white dwarf is nowhere to be found.

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