Another pleasant surprise in the Cat's Eye

Hubble isn't the only space-based telescope producing images of planetary nebulae with structures predicted by Adam Frank's new computer model. Frank was equally blown away by a recent picture of the Cat's Eye nebula that was produced by combining a visible-light Hubble photograph with an X-ray image produced by the Chandra Observatory.

He ran across the Cat's Eye Nebula in a January news report, just like anyone else might have, and exclaimed, "Oh my God! It's showing up in X-rays!"

What showed up were bright patches of powerful X-rays that are many times hotter than the star itself. Frank thinks the X-ray blobs, which sit on opposite sides of the star, represent flares of hot gas billowing outward, powered and channeled by his predicted magnetic fields. The same process drives flares on our Sun.

But the star that created the Cat's Eye is a real geezer, with only a few million years to live. It shouldn't have a magnetic field. Still, something generated the X-rays, puzzling the researchers who made the image, including Martin Guerrero of the University of Illinois.

Guerrero speculated in early January that the X-rays might be caused by shock waves generated by a stellar wind -- a strong stream of charged particles racing out from the star. Since then, Frank e-mailed Guerrero and suggested that magnetic fields might be behind the X-rays. Guerrero was intrigued, so we called him.

"It was completely unexpected to find hard X-ray emissions from the central stars of planetary nebula," Guerrero told SPACE.com. "One of the possibilities that may fit is that these stars have strong magnetic fields that may produce strong X-ray emissions."

Score another point for the magnetic field theory.

Unifying concept?

John Thomas, who collaborated with Frank on the Nature paper, says their theory of magnetic fields may ultimately explain other mysterious aspects of old stars, including how stellar winds are tossed into space. And might also help us better understand our own Sun and its fate.

"This is potentially the kind of unifying concept that one seeks in science," Thomas says.

But proof will require more observations, more facts and some well-planned research (and perhaps a few more surprise collaborations).

Meanwhile, Adam Frank has no trouble describing the planetary nebula known as Mz3.

"What a psychotic mess," he says.