A Colossal Iron Mystery Has Been Discovered in the Ring Nebula

A composite RGB image of the Ring Nebula (also known as Messier 57 and NGC 6720) constructed from four WEAVE/LIFU emission-line images. The bright outer ring is made up of light emitted by three different ions of oxygen, while the ‘bar’ across the middle is due to light emitted by a plasma of four-times-ionized iron atoms. Credit: Roger Wesson et al / MNRAS An illustrative set of 8 individual WEAVE LIFU emission-line images of the Ring Nebula. The color in each panel indicates the brightness of the emission, with brown-red indicating the highest intensity, shading through yellow and green to blue for the faintest emission. North is up and east, left. Credit: Roger Wesson et al / MNRAS A colossal bar of iron hidden inside the Ring Nebula may be the ghostly remains of a planet destroyed by a dying star. An international team of astronomers led by researchers at UCL (University College London) and Cardiff University has uncovered an unexpected feature inside the well-known Ring Nebula. Hidden within the glowing structure is a previously unseen cloud of iron shaped like a narrow bar. This unusual concentration of iron atoms is being reported for the first time in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . The structure takes the form of a long strip that fits neatly within the nebula’s inner region, which is elliptical in shape and familiar from images captured by telescopes, including the James Webb Space Telescope at infrared wavelengths . According to the researchers, the iron bar stretches about 500 times farther than Pluto’s orbit around the Sun and contains an amount of iron comparable in mass to Mars. What the Ring Nebula Is and How It Formed The Ring Nebula was first identified in 1779 by French astronomer Charles Messier in the northern constellation Lyra. [2] It is a bright shell of gas created when a star reaches the end of its fuel burning life and releases its outer layers into space. In several billion years, the Sun is expected to undergo a similar transformation. [3] How Astronomers Detected the Iron Bar The discovery was made using data collected with the Large Integral Field Unit (LIFU) mode of a new instrument called the WHT Enhanced Area Velocity Explorer (WEAVE). [4] WEAVE is installed on the Isaac Newton Group’s 4.2-meter William Herschel Telescope. [5] LIFU consists of hundreds of optical fibers bundled together. This setup allowed the researchers to capture spectra (where light is separated into its constituent wavelengths) across every part of the Ring Nebula and across all optical wavelengths, something that had not been achieved before. A Hidden Feature Revealed in the Data Lead author Dr. Roger Wesson, who holds positions at UCL’s Department of Physics & Astronomy and Cardiff University, explained how the finding emerged. “Even though the Ring Nebula has been studied using many different telescopes and instruments, WEAVE has allowed us to observe it in a new way, providing so much more detail than before. By obtaining a spectrum continuously...

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