English

The Early Interaction of the Planetary Nebula NGC 40 with the Interstellar Medium

Astrophysics 2009-11-07 v1

Abstract

We report the detection of an Halpha emission-line structure in the upstream side of the planetary nebula NGC 40, which is predicted by numerical simulations, and which is attributed to Rayleigh-Taylor instability. Such a Rayleigh-Taylor instability is expected to occur at early stages of the interaction process between the interstellar medium (ISM) and a fast moving planetary nebula, as is the case for NGC 40. We resolved the Rayleigh-Taylor instability `tongues', as well as the flatness of the nebula around the `tongues', which results from the deceleration by the ISM.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0201252,
  title  = {The Early Interaction of the Planetary Nebula NGC 40 with the Interstellar Medium},
  author = {Jodie Martin and Kiriaki Xilouris and Noam Soker},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0201252},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

7 pages, 2 figures - 1 color, 1 mosaic Submitted to ApJLetters