Sh2-71 • Bipolar Planetary Nebula in HaOIIIRGB (Douglas J Struble)

Sh2-71 • Bipolar Planetary Nebula in HaOIIIRGB

As most of you know, I love capturing Sharpless objects; especially planetary nebula. I tried my best to do this one justice. It is a bicolor palette of Ha and OIII with RGB stars.

This is a very unusual planetary nebula still under a lot of speculation. Initially it was perceived to be from a binary star system. Now there is evidence it may actually have been from a triple star system. David Jones at Cornell University in August of 2019 wrote a very interesting brief on Sh2-71.

Recent studies have indicated that triple star systems may play a role in the formation of an appreciable number of planetary nebulae, however only one triple central star is known to date (and that system is likely too wide to have had much influence on the evolution of its component stars). Here, we consider the possibility that Sh 2-71 was formed by a triple system which has since broken apart. We present the discovery of two regions of emission, seemingly aligned with the proposed tertiary orbit (i.e. in line with the axis formed by the two candidate central star systems previously considered in the literature). We also perform a few simple tests of the plausibility of the triple hypothesis based on the observed properties (coordinates, radial velocities, distances and proper motions) of the stars observed close to the projected centre of the nebula, adding further support through numerical integrations of binary orbits responding to mass loss. Although a number of open questions remain, we conclude that Sh 2-71 is currently one of the best candidates for planetary nebula formation influenced by triple-star interactions.

Planetary Nebulae
Sharpless2 Objects

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