FAST Measures Hydrogen Absorption in Planetary Nebula

Scientists detected neutral atomic hydrogen absorption in planetary nebula IC 4997, which is a fancy way of saying there is cold hydrogen gas.

IMAGE: Planetary nebula IC 4997. CREDIT: Howard Bond (STScI) and NASA/ESA

Our Sun is a main-sequence star. This means that sometime in the far distant future, about five billion years down the road, our star…