By NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center
June 24, 2022
NGC 2392, known as the Eskimo Nebula, Clown-faced Nebula, Lion Nebula, or Caldwell 39, is a double-shelled planetary nebula, with the more distant gas having made up the external layers of a Sun-like star just 10,000 years earlier. To some, the substantial NGC 2392 nebula looks like a persons head surrounded by a parka hood, thus the Eskimo Nebula label. More recently, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged the nebula in noticeable light, while the nebula was also imaged in X-rays by the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
NGC 2392, understood as the Eskimo Nebula, Clown-faced Nebula, Lion Nebula, or Caldwell 39, is a double-shelled planetary nebula, with the more distant gas having made up the external layers of a Sun-like star only 10,000 years earlier. The NGC 2392 Nebula spans about 1/3 of a light year and lies in our Milky Way Galaxy, about 3,000 light years remote from Earth, towards the constellation of the Twins (Gemini).
To some, the huge NGC 2392 nebula looks like a persons head surrounded by a parka hood, thus the Eskimo Nebula label. More just recently, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged the nebula in noticeable light, while the nebula was also imaged in X-rays by the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
NGC 2392 is a bipolar double-shell planetary nebula.
About 5,000 light-years from Earth, the sensational nebula NGC 2392 formed after the demise of a star like our Sun.
In this sonification, the image is scanned clockwise like a radar. The radius is mapped to pitch, so light further from the center is higher pitched. The outline of the nebulas shell can be heard in the fluctuating of pitch, stressed by its spokes. Brightness manages the volume.
Sonification credit: SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida).
