2007/11/27 by J. Meaburn, M. Lloyd, N. M. H. Vaytet +1 · 42 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Event (particle physics) #History and Developments in Astronomy #Lobe #Nebula #Observatory #Planetary nebula #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Torus #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.12782.x
published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 385(1), 269-273 (Oxford University Press) · 12 pages, 5 figures, MNRAS in press
arxiv created 2007/11/27 · openalex publication_date 2008/01/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The outflowing proper motions of 15 knots in the dominant northwestern lobe of the high-excitation poly-polar planetary nebula NGC 6302 have been determined by comparing their positions relative to those of faint stars in an image taken at the San Pedro Martir Observatory in 2007 to those in a South African Astronomical Observatory archival plate obtained by Evans in 1956. The Hubble-type expansion of this lobe is now directly confirmed in a model-independent way from these measurements. Furthermore, an unambigous distance to NGC 6302 of 1.17 ± 0.14 kpc is now determined. Also, all the velocity vectors of the 15 knots (and two others) point back to the central source. An eruptive event from within the central torus ≈2200 yr previously must have created the high-speed lobes of NGC 6302.