Transcript of video accompanying photo release STScI-PRC95-01
9:00 A.M. MST, January 11, 1995


TEXT SCREENS:

AT THE AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY MEETING IN TUCSON, ARIZONA
PROFESSOR PATRICK HARRINGTON PRESENTED AN IMAGE OF THE CATS EYE
PLANETARY NEBULA (NGC 6543) TAKEN WITH NASA'S HUBBLE SPACE
TELESCOPE'S WIDE FIELD PLANETARY CAMERA.

NGC 6543 IS 3,000 LIGHT YEARS AWAY IN THE NORTHEN CONSTELLATION
DRACO. THE HUBBLE IMAGE IS A COLOR COMPOSITE IMAGE OF THREE IMAGES
TAKEN AT DIFFERENT WAVELENGTHS.

HUBBLE REVEALS INTRICATE STRUCTURES SUCH AS CONCENTRIC GAS SHELLS,
JETS OF HIGH SPEED GAS, AND UNUSUAL SHOCK-INDUCED KNOTS OF GAS. THE
NEBUA IS ESTIMATED TO BE 1,000 YEAR OLD AND IS A FOSSIL RECORD OF
THE DYNAMICS AND LATE EVOLUTION OF DYING STAR.


PATRICK HARRINGTON
ASTRONOMY DEPARTMENT
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

ON WHAT IMAGE TELLS US ABOUT OUR FUTURE

sot:
"Because this represents the last stages in the evolution of
ordinary stars, a star like our sun is going to go through an
episode of this sort in maybe five or six billion years from now.
So, in some sense when we look at an object like this we are
looking at the future of our own solar system."

slate:
PAT HARRINGTON ON WHAT HAPPENED ANY PLANETS AROUND THIS STAR

sot:
"If this star had planets they would have vaporized. They are not
there anymore."

slate:
PAT HARRINGTON ON WHAT HE THOUGHT WHEN HE FIRST SAW THE IMAGE

sot:
"It was clearly the best image of a planetary nebula I had ever
seen. I remember saying we had to stop and get some champagne
because this is a spectacular image."

slate:
PAT HARRINGTON ON THE BEAUTY OF THE IMAGE

sot:
"I think it is beautiful for the same reason it is interesting,
which is all the symmetry in it."

slate:
PAT HARRINGTON EXPLAINS WHY IT IS THE BEST IMAGE OF A PLANETARY
NEBULA

sot:
"I think this is the most exciting image of a planetary nebula that
I have seen because of the level of complexity and detail that we
see here. It's really quite impressive. Other objects are simply
messy. But this one has got all sorts of fascinating structure."

slate:
PAT HARRINGTON EXPLAINS PLANETARY NEBULA

sot:
"Planetary nebula is sort of a misnomer, actually it's sort of a
gas cloud. The fireworks that are produced when a fairly ordinary
star reaches the end of its life and throws its outer layers into
space. The reason they are called planetary nebula is because in
the last century when people were using small telescopes some of
the small round ones looked like the planets Uranus and Neptune in
our solar system. Really it is the cloud of gas that is produced at
the end of a star's lifetime."

slate:
PAT HARRINGTON EXPLAINS THE IMAGES DETAILS

sot:
What we see here is a record of a multi-stage process. The actual
loss of the outer layers of the star turns out to be enormously
complicated. We can see that at the present time, the star is
blowing a bubble. It has a wind which is flowing rapidly into
space. And this tenuous, fast wind is sweeping up the nebula
material and constructing a bubble. Outside of that we see this
ring of knots, which must correspond to some earlier stage of
ejection and further, beyond the boundary of the picture that we
see there is actually an outer halo. Further more the jets that we
can see in of the image represents the very rapid phase of mass
loss that occurs after the main structures that have formed. So its
an extremely complex process."

slate:
PAT HARRINGTON ON WHAT ASTRONOMERS WILL LEARN FROM THE IMAGE

sot:
"For a specialist like my self there is an enormous amount of
detail that is going to tell us about the kinds of elements that
were created at the last stages of the stars life.  Its going to
tell us about the ejection process itself. It raises interesting
questions about how these get from the last stages and change their
direction suddenly. But from the point of view of the average
person, you could say it's interesting because its a window on our
own future. It tells us what is going to happen to a star like our
sun in 5 or 6 billion years."


























NASA'S HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE
HAS OPENED A WINDOW ON OUR
FUTURE WITH THIS IMAGE RELEASED
AT THE AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL
SOCIETY MEETING IN TUCSON,
ARIZONA.  THE STRUCTURE OF THE
CAT'S EYE PLANETARY NEBULA
REVEALS TO ASTRONOMERS THE
DEATH THROES OF A STAR LIKE OUR
SUN.
sot: "In some sense, when we
look at an object like this we
are looking at the future of
our own solar system."
OUR SOLAR SYSTEM WOULD BE A
TINY SPEC IN THE ENORMOUS GAS
CLOUD IMAGED BY HUBBLE. AND
EARTH, LIKE ANY PLANETS THIS
STAR MIGHT HAVE HAD, WOULD BE
VAPORIZED. ASTRONOMERS WILL
CONTINUE TO STUDY THE DETAILED
STRUCTURE OF THE HUBBLE IMAGE
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE
EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS OF SUN
LIKE STARS.