Helix Subsector/Paranoia Press/meta
The documentation for the Helix Nebula included with the Original Paranoia Press published material (1981 Booklet) noted the following:
- "A gas cloud thrown off approximately 99,500 PI by the primary star in location 0407 in the Helix Subsector . . . Several points of coalescence within the cloud are thought to have produced protostars . . ."
The documentation for the Helix Nebula included with the Paranoia Press 1991 Updates reads as follows:
- "The most significant astrographic feature is the Helix Nebula, a circular veil of interstellar gas surrounding a group of seventeen hot, young stars in the spinward-rimward corner of the sector."
This is in actuality factually in error. The cloud was intially thrown off closer to 14,500 PI, with expansion of the entire structure from about 9,500 PI. The stellar remnant at the center of the Helix Nebula is a "Degenerate Dwarf" (aka "White Dwarf") that produced what is known as a "Planetary Nebula" as it ended its life as a thermonuclear-burning star, increasingly heating its outer layers during its red-giant phase as its core contracted and increased in temperature, so that its outer envelope of gases eventually became gravitationally unbound and drifted away, leaving behind the stellar core remnant. This type of nebula is quite small in mass and size and dissipates rather rapidly over astronomical timescales. It is entirely different from the extremely large and massive molecular H2 cloud nebular regions in the galaxy that give rise to star formation due to gravitational instability.
Like many Planetary Nebulae, the Helix Nebula is known to contain Cometary knots in its main ring, which are large knots of denser nebulosity within the expanding gases. It is likely that these were mistaken for protostars by the original authors.