Jan 19, 2026 08:42 PM
(This post was last modified: Jan 19, 2026 08:42 PM by C C.)
https://interestingengineering.com/scien...ing-nebula
EXCERPTS: Have you ever seen a cloud made of iron? You may not believe it, but deep inside a nebula that astronomers have studied for centuries, researchers have uncovered a massive bar-shaped cloud made almost entirely of iron atoms.
This glowing shell of gas left behind by a dying star had gone unnoticed despite hundreds of years of observation. Stretching across a distance roughly 500 times the size of Pluto’s orbit and containing as much iron as the planet Mars, the newly found “iron bar” raises deep questions about how stars die, how nebulae form, and what happens to planets caught in the chaos.
Interestingly, even scientists have no clue how this iron bar came into existence. “At present, there seem to be no obvious explanations that can account for the presence of the narrow bar,” the researchers note. This discovery shows that even well-known cosmic objects can still surprise us.
[...] At the moment, scientists do not know how the iron bar formed. One possibility is that it records a previously unknown stage in how the dying star expelled its outer layers, revealing new details about the physics of stellar mass loss.
A more dramatic idea is that the iron could be the remains of a rocky planet that wandered too close to the star during its expansion and was vaporized into a curved arc of hot plasma.
However, the researchers still do not know whether other elements are mixed in with the iron. This missing information makes it hard to choose between different explanations. To solve this, the researchers plan to observe the Ring Nebula again using WEAVE at higher spectral resolution, which will allow them to separate subtle signals from different atoms more clearly... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Have you ever seen a cloud made of iron? You may not believe it, but deep inside a nebula that astronomers have studied for centuries, researchers have uncovered a massive bar-shaped cloud made almost entirely of iron atoms.
This glowing shell of gas left behind by a dying star had gone unnoticed despite hundreds of years of observation. Stretching across a distance roughly 500 times the size of Pluto’s orbit and containing as much iron as the planet Mars, the newly found “iron bar” raises deep questions about how stars die, how nebulae form, and what happens to planets caught in the chaos.
Interestingly, even scientists have no clue how this iron bar came into existence. “At present, there seem to be no obvious explanations that can account for the presence of the narrow bar,” the researchers note. This discovery shows that even well-known cosmic objects can still surprise us.
[...] At the moment, scientists do not know how the iron bar formed. One possibility is that it records a previously unknown stage in how the dying star expelled its outer layers, revealing new details about the physics of stellar mass loss.
A more dramatic idea is that the iron could be the remains of a rocky planet that wandered too close to the star during its expansion and was vaporized into a curved arc of hot plasma.
However, the researchers still do not know whether other elements are mixed in with the iron. This missing information makes it hard to choose between different explanations. To solve this, the researchers plan to observe the Ring Nebula again using WEAVE at higher spectral resolution, which will allow them to separate subtle signals from different atoms more clearly... (MORE - missing details)