What specific hot object illuminates the ejected shell gas of a planetary nebula?
Answer
The exposed, hot core collapsing into a white dwarf star left behind after the star sheds its outer layers.
Planetary nebulae are formed during the late stages of life for stars similar in mass to the Sun. When the star exhausts its fuel, it expels its outer layers of gas into space. The remaining stellar core contracts intensely, becoming incredibly hot and small—a white dwarf. This exposed white dwarf radiates prodigious amounts of ultraviolet radiation due to its extreme temperature, sometimes exceeding one hundred thousand degrees Celsius. This intense radiation acts as an internal light source, exciting and illuminating the surrounding shell of previously ejected gas, causing the expanding material to glow brightly.
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