Cylindrical Celestial Events

So, over the past few weeks, I've been reading about a couple of different celestial phenomena which, while appearing spherical, are widely thought to be cylinders, viewed end-on. My question to the astrophysics geeks in the house is this: Why would a supernova or a nebula be cylindrical? At the very least, why would supernovae or nebulae be se uniformly cylindrical that we would ASSUME they are, in spite of spherical appearance? I'm embarrassed to say that I have no idea. Conservation of angular momentum?

Spoketh by red_herring at 7/28/2009 07:47:00 AM

2 Remarks:

kheckeroth said...

"the following is my educated guess"

If you look at the sun, the band of its equator has a rotational velocity much much faster than the polar region of the sun, if the sun were to give off large amounts of matter all the sudden in its polar regions ( then a sort of unraveling towards its equator) then if viewed in a line directly facing the poles you would see your circle, but actually have a cylinder. Talking about the cats eye nebula? I've thought abouhht this as well alot.


"typed via iPod sorry for errors"

July 31, 2009 at 12:44 AM  
red_herring said...

OH OH! So it IS the momentum! I knew that bugger had something to do with it. Yeah, I completely forgot that suns spin.

July 31, 2009 at 7:06 AM  

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