Is the Sun currently producing a Planetary Nebula?

[Fallingstar1971]

I was watching this video MW posted

http://soho.esac.esa.int/data/LATEST/current_c3.gif

I watched the CME, I then surfed the forums and watched several other SOHO videos, and it brought to mind this question:

With all the material ejected during a CME event, would said material condense into a "shell" around the solar system? From Proxima, would we look like a nebula?

There is a lot of material that the sun looses during these events. From what I understand, planetary nebula form when a star like the sun reaches Red Giant stage and "sheds" its layers off into a nebula (ring nebula in Lyra for example)

But now, we are seeing the sun puff off material today, while it is still a relatively middle aged star. Could this be the way that these nebula's start? Even earlier then the Red Giant phase? Not saying that the sun is expanding or anything, just wondering where all this material goes, into a "cloud" or "nebula" around the sun?

Or is the material from these CMEs somehow different from the materials the Red Giant sheds?

Just wondering.....

Star

 

[MeteorWayne]

What is being ejected now is far too thin to be visible. If you think about it, since we can't see it in the solar system where it would be illuminated by our active sun, how could it be seen from light years away?

 

[Fallingstar1971]

I suppose it could collect at the edges of the solar system, but I guess your right, we should see something..... or at least one of the voyagers should

Star

 

[crazyeddie]

With all the material ejected during a CME event, would said material condense into a "shell" around the solar system? From Proxima, would we look like a nebula?

There is a lot of material that the sun looses during these events. From what I understand, planetary nebula form when a star like the sun reaches Red Giant stage and "sheds" its layers off into a nebula (ring nebula in Lyra for example)

But now, we are seeing the sun puff off material today, while it is still a relatively middle aged star. Could this be the way that these nebula's start? Even earlier then the Red Giant phase? Not saying that the sun is expanding or anything, just wondering where all this material goes, into a "cloud" or "nebula" around the sun?

Or is the material from these CMEs somehow different from the materials the Red Giant sheds?

The amount of material ejected in a CME event is miniscule compared to the total mass of our sun. It expands rapidly and dissipates quickly, becoming far too attenuated to be visible to normal vision or instruments.

When the sun become a red giant, on the other hand, it ejects huge amounts of it's own atmosphere....the entire outer layer, in fact. This is orders of magnitude more material than a CME. So, no, this is in no way the beginning of a planetary nebula.

 

[SpaceTas]

The mass loss rate via the solar wind (CME included) is tiny compared to the total solar mass. It is about 1-2 x 10^-14 Solar Mass per year. As said by others planetary nebula is the outer layers of a 0.8 to few solar mass star when it becomes a white dwarf. For the sun the ejecta would have a mass of 0.4 Solar mass (from stellar evolution models; there are white dwarfs running in mass from about 0.4 to 1.4 solar mass, the masses of planetary nebulae have been estimated and are are fractions of a solar mass to around a solar mass).

So the solar wind would take about 2^13 years ie 20,000 billion years == many times longer than the life-time of the Sun (5 billion till red giant and white dwarf stage).

So solar wind won't expel enough mass to make up a planetary nebula before the real thing happens.

PS: the solar wind will leak through the Heliopause (solar magnetic boundary). When the Voagers get there we'll have a better idea.

Other stars:
Higher mass stars than the sun; have higher stellar wind loss rates but still not enough to be spotted. But during the red giant stage the mass loss rate can be much much higher; so stars can expel in total a reasonable amount of material, before the end of the red giant stage and the formation of the white dwarf + planetary nebula. This can be seen around many planetary nebula as a very faint shall. eg this Spitzer image of the Ring Nebula in Lyra:

 

[Fallingstar1971]

Very nice indeed. Thank you

Star