Level of Education of Students Involved
Undergraduate
Faculty Sponsor
Todd Hillwig
College
College of Arts & Sciences (CAS)
Discipline(s)
Astronomy
ORCID Identifier(s)
0009-0003-8930-865X
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Symposium Date
Spring 4-30-2026
Abstract
Planetary nebulae are one of the last stages of stellar evolution for low-mass stars, which have a mass of less than about eight times the mass of the Sun. As the star ejects its outer layers, the high-temperature central star can ionize the gaseous ejected layers and make them glow. Also detected in a portion of planetary nebulae are binary central stars where another object is in orbit with the central star of the planetary nebula. Within the Galactic bulge, a statistically significant alignment between the orbital/nebular axis and the Galactic disk has been observed for the binary population of planetary nebulae. I propose a study that will model the angular change of a binary star system of the Galactic bulge to study whether this alignment can be caused by the Galactic gravitational potential.
Recommended Citation
Wood, Hunter, "Explaining the Binary Planetary Nebulae Alignment in the Galactic Bulge with the Galactic Gravitational Potential" (2026). Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE). 1576.
https://scholar.valpo.edu/cus/1576
