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planetary nebula.

Noun
Sci-FiSettingTechnical
MEANING

A glowing shell of gas expelled by an aging low- or intermediate-mass star and lit by its hot remnant.

Use it for

a luminous late-stage stellar shell; color and structure on astronomical scales; a historical name distinguished from a cloud around a planet

Words that belong together

  • a planetary nebula
  • a planetary nebula’s central star

On the page

The planetary nebula spread around a central star too faint for the unaided image to show clearly.
The survey mapped the planetary nebula’s bright arcs before studying its remnant.

Related words

ionized stellar-ejecta shellstellar remnant environmentnebula
Word forms
Base
planetary nebula

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Science-fiction vocabulary

Usage notes

Primary category: sci-fi. Forms: Singular planetary nebula; plural planetary nebulae or planetary nebulas. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.

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