Central star in a planetary nebula reveals details of its life

Image of the planetary nebula in the open star cluster Messier 37. The cluster contains several hundred stars. The butterfly-shaped nebula is visible due to red luminous hydrogen gas. Stars like our sun end their lives as white dwarfs. Some of them are surrounded by a planetary nebula consisting of gas ejected by the dying star shortly before its death. An international research team led by Professor Klaus Werner of the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of has for the first time studied a central star of a planetary nebula located in an open star cluster. The researchers were able to precisely determine the mass that the central star lost during its lifetime.