The Crystal Ball Nebula is a planetary nebula in Taurus around a bright central star, the object that convinced William Herschel some nebulae are not made of stars.
At a glance
| type | nebula |
|---|---|
| distance from the Sun | 1,480 light-years (453 pc) |
| its light left it | 1,480 years ago |
| size in the piece | about 0.67 light-years acrossmodel |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with. Model marks a property of the piece’s galaxy model rather than a measurement.
About Crystal Ball Nebula
When William Herschel came upon this faint round glow with a star at its centre, he realised it could not be a distant crowd of unresolved stars: it had to be a shining fluid around a single star. The observation changed his view of what nebulae are.
We now know it as a planetary nebula, gas shed by a dying star and lit by its hot core. Its central star is a binary, which may help explain its bubbly look, and infrared images from the WISE satellite revealed a pair of faint rings around it, unseen in visible light.
What you see in the piece
Tiny at this scale; fly to it and its bright central star, a close pair, sits inside the faint shell.
Questions
How far away is the Crystal Ball Nebula?
The Crystal Ball Nebula is about 1,480 light-years (453 pc) from the Sun.
Why is the Crystal Ball Nebula important?
It persuaded William Herschel that some nebulae are glowing gas around a star, not unresolved star clusters.