Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of HD 44179, The Red Rectangle

Details Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of HD 44179, The Red Rectangle Hubble Space Telescope Imaging of HD 44179, The Red Rectangle

Apr 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004aj....127.2362c&link_type=abstract

The Astronomical Journal, Volume 127, Issue 4, pp. 2362-2377.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

54

Stars: Binaries: Spectroscopic, Stars: Circumstellar Matter, Ism: Lines And Bands, Stars: Individual: Henry Draper Number: Hd 44179, Stars: Mass Loss

Scientific paper

We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and deep ground-based images of the Red Rectangle (RR), a bipolar proto-planetary nebula associated with the post-AGB binary system HD 44179. The high-resolution HST images reveal complex new structures, many of them unique to this object. The RR nebula is dominated by a discontinuous ``bicone,'' whose bright, sharp linear edges give the nebula an overall X-shaped appearance. The edges of the bicone are connected by a remarkable series of linear features elongated perpendicular to the radius vector, giving the object a ladder-like structure. The ``rungs'' of the ladder structure show a quasi-periodic spacing, suggesting that they have arisen from discrete episodes of mass loss from the central star, separated by a few hundred years. The total timescale over which mass has been shed into the visible nebula is of order 14,000 yr. Outside the X-shaped bicone, parabolas curl inward, resembling wineglasses, which terminate on the bicone edges in large, limb-brightened vortices. The central object is bisected by a dark band, indicating that the star is not seen directly but is instead obscured by a surrounding opaque dust disk.
Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.

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