Nebula Research Paper

Nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionised gasses. The discovery of nebula goes back to the early 1600s. Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc discovered the Orion Nebula in 1610 using a refracting telescope. Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc used this telescope to observe the skies, for example, it was used to observe Jupiter’s moons as well as other aspects of space, including nebulae. The discovery of the Orion nebula was revolutionary. While it was Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc who discovered the Orion nebula, Christiaan Huygens in 1659 was the first person to produce a detailed study on it. Huygens works led him to discover several interstellar nebulae and some double stars.

Nebulae vary vastly in size, some nebula can be
One place in which nebula is formed is during stellar evolution, specifically in the late stages of it. Stellar evolution is the changes a star goes through over time. As seen in figure 1, all stars life cycles are dependent on their solar masses. It is apparent that the higher the solar mass for the star, the lower its lifetime. Stars, in fact, are initially born in nebula and most create nebula towards the end of their life. An example of stellar evolution we see today can be seen from our sun, a red giant. During the lifecycle of a star, it is powered by nuclear fusion, and the sun has a hydrogen-helium core. Towards the later stages of a star's life it begins to drain its nuclear fuel and if it is a red giant like the sun, its core will collapse and will turn into a white dwarf, the outer layers of the sun will be removed as planetary nebula. It can be said when a red giant turns into a white dwarf its temperature increases, this means the amount of ultraviolet radiation emitted increases. This ultraviolet radiation ionises the nebula that was created in the outer layers of the red giant at the end of its