What phenomenon creates a planetary nebula structure around an aging, Sun-like star?
Answer
The gentle puffing away of outer layers by slow-moving stellar winds
Stars with lower mass, similar to our own Sun, experience a gentler transition into stellar demise. As these stars age, they swell into red giants before shrinking. During this shedding process, they slowly expel their outer atmosphere via relatively slow-moving stellar winds. This expelled shell of gas glows because it is illuminated by the radiation from the extremely hot, shrinking stellar core remaining at the center, which is now classified as a white dwarf. This illuminated shell forms the structure termed a planetary nebula, which is relatively short-lived compared to other cosmic features.
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