bipolar nebula

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bipolar nebula

A small emission or reflection nebula that appears hourglass-shaped and that represents outflow of gas in opposite directions from a central star that is often obscured by dust. Many have been detected as infrared or radio sources. A bipolar nebula can occur at two very different stages of a star's evolution. It can represent the early stages of a star's life, when it is the visible sign of the bipolar outflow of T Tauri wind from a young star. It can also result from the directional loss of matter from an evolved giant star as it begins to eject mass to become a planetary nebula.

bipolar nebula

[bī‚pōl·ər ′neb·yə·lə]

(astronomy)

A nebula consisting of two relatively symmetrical bright lobes with a star between them.

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It gets its moniker from a Hubble Space Telescope image that reveals it as a bipolar nebula with a very vague resemblance to a footprint.

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The odd little bipolar nebula Sharpless 2-106 in Cygnus is a challenge object even for visual observers with 16-inch telescopes under dark skies.

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If that's the case, what would a bipolar nebula look like if turned sideways?

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That eruption produced the bipolar nebula famous from Hubble Space Telescope images (opposite).

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These reveal a classic bipolar nebula in which the bright gas clearly forms two distinct lobes straddling the star rather than one continuous feature wrapped around it.