The discovery of infrared rings in the planetary nebula NGC 1514 during the WISE all-sky survey

Creators: Ressler, Michael E.; Cohen, Martin; Wachter, Stefanie; Hoard, D. W.; Mainzer, Amy K.; Wright, Edward L.

Abstract

We report the discovery of a pair of infrared, axisymmetric rings in the planetary nebula NGC 1514 during the course of the WISE all-sky mid-infrared survey. Similar structures are seen at visible wavelengths in objects such as the "Engraved Hourglass Nebula" (MyCn 18) and the "Southern Crab Nebula" (Hen 2-104). However, in NGC 1514 we see only a single pair of rings and they are easily observed only in the mid-infrared. These rings are roughly 0.2 pc in diameter, are separated by 0.05 pc, and are dominated by dust emission with a characteristic temperature of 160 K. We compare the morphology and color of the rings to the other nebular structures seen at visible, far-infrared, and radio wavelengths, and close with a discussion of a physical model and formation scenario for NGC 1514.

Additional Information

© 2010 American Astronomical Society. Received 2010 August 13; accepted 2010 September 20; published 2010 November 9. We thank our anonymous referee for the very thorough review of this manuscript and the suggestions which improved our discussion. We are grateful to Romano Corradi for his generous provision of the FITS files for the O_(III) and Hα images of NGC 1514, and to Roc Cutri and Frank Masci for explanations of the WISE processing pipeline. This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. M.C. thanks NASA for supporting his participation in this work through UCLA Sub-Award 1000- S-MA756 with a UCLA FAU 26311 to MIRA. Finally, we acknowledge the many scientists and staff of all the WISE partners who spent many years making WISE successful. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France, and the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This publication makes use of data products from the following facilities: the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA; the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation; the Digitized Sky Survey which was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government grant NAGW-2166 using photographic data obtained by the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Palomar Mountain and the UK Schmidt Telescope; the Infrared Space Observatory, an ESA project with instruments funded by ESA Member States (especially the PI countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) and with the participation of ISAS and NASA; and the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (Condon et al. 1998) which was performed by the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory which is operated by Associated Universities, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.

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