PLANETARY NEBULA

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does planetary nebula mean? 

• PLANETARY NEBULA (noun)
  The noun PLANETARY NEBULA has 1 sense:

1. a nebula that was once thought to be a star with its planets but is now thought to be a very hot star surrounded by an expanding envelope of ionized gases that emit a fluorescent glow because of intense radiation from the star

  Familiarity information: PLANETARY NEBULA used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PLANETARY NEBULA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A nebula that was once thought to be a star with its planets but is now thought to be a very hot star surrounded by an expanding envelope of ionized gases that emit a fluorescent glow because of intense radiation from the star

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("planetary nebula" is a kind of...):

nebula (an immense cloud of gas (mainly hydrogen) and dust in interstellar space)

 Context examples 

The team used MUSE to produce the first detailed optical maps of the gas and dust distributed throughout a planetary nebula.

(The Strange Structures of the Saturn Nebula, ESO)

New image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 5307, a planetary nebula that lies about 10,000 light-years from Earth.

(Hubble Views Final Stages of a Star’s Life, ESA/NASA)

A planetary nebula is an expanding shell of glowing gas expelled by a star late in its life.

(Hubble Detects Giant 'Cannonballs' Shooting from Star, NASA)

The planetary nebula in this image is called NGC 2440.

(Hubble Views a Colorful Demise of a Sun-like Star, NASA)

A planetary nebula is the final stage of a Sun-like star.

(Hubble Views Final Stages of a Star’s Life, ESA/NASA)

The spectacular planetary nebula NGC 7009, or the Saturn Nebula, emerges from the darkness like a series of oddly-shaped bubbles, lit up in glorious pinks and blues.

(The Strange Structures of the Saturn Nebula, ESO)

This colourful image was captured by the powerful MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), as part of a study which mapped the dust inside a planetary nebula for the first time.

(The Strange Structures of the Saturn Nebula, ESO)