Snow on Mount Helmos. Photo credit: Helmos Observatory/National Observatory of Athens
This astonishing image of Helmos Observatory (look closely) introduces the news item posted by the Royal Astronomical Society. Panos Boumis of the National Observatory Athens and John Meaburn of the University of Manchester have published the results of their research based on observations made with Aristarchos, the 2.3 m telescope at Helmos Observatory. Aristarchos only saw first light in 2005, so that Boumis and Meaburn are revealing their conclusions so soon is pretty exciting. In order to measure the distance and age of three lobes of the nebula KjPn8 (in other words, three parts of the gaseous shell that was ejected by a star as it collapsed into a white dwarf), they attached a narrowband camera to the telescope. By comparing the imaging results over the course of several months (years?), they were able to track the velocity and expansion of the lobes; from there, they calculated the distance and age of the nebula.
It’s interesting enough to learn that KjPn8 is some 8000 light years away from Earth. Even more interesting, however, is the conclusion that the lobes were created at different times: 3200, 7200 and *50,000* years ago. That’s…what…the Paleolithic? Homo neandrathalensis has another 10-20,000 years to go extinct and Homo sapiens has just arrived in Europe. That’s seriously cool stuff.
Click on the image to go to the original, posted by the Helmos Observatory.
