Mini Planetary Nebula?

[Pinda Gupta]

So I just stumbled upon my 5th Planetary Nebula (woot!), but I noticed something odd with this one. It's positively tiny. Look at these and you'll see what I mean:

The "mini" Planetary Nebula from 10LY away:

Spoiler

A "standard" Planetary Nebula from nearly 60LY away:

Spoiler

You'll notice that the "standard" PN is nearly 6 times farther away in the second pic, yet appears nearly the same size as the "mini" one. Have I found something exceedingly rare, or are these tiny ones all over the place? In seeing over 65 PN's, I've never seen one before, so I'm not sure.
Scientifically, why is this happening? Is the nebula very young, very old, or maybe just normal? It does have a black hole at the center, which I suspect may have swallowed quite a lot of it.

 

[Andrew Gaspurr]

Since there is a black hole at its center the nebula is most likely the result of a supernova blast. If it's rather small it might indicate that the blast occurred not too long ago, since planetary nebulae tend to dissolve within several (ten) thousands of years. Also, if the BH system would contain another massive young star it's radiation would have burned away the nebula pretty fast.

 

[Pinda Gupta]

Since there is a black hole at its center the nebula is most likely the result of a supernova blast. If it's rather small it might indicate that the blast occurred not too long ago, since planetary nebulae tend to dissolve within several (ten) thousands of years. Also, if the BH system would contain another massive young star it's radiation would have burned away the nebula pretty fast.

Ah, I see. About how common do you guess these are in Elite Dangerous?

 

[roboteconomist]

I found a particularly tiny neutron star nebula in the OEPHAICH sector a week ago. If you zoom all the way in on it in the galmap, the gas cloud barely reaches the edge of the white indicator dot.

 

[Pinda Gupta]

I found a particularly tiny neutron star nebula in the OEPHAICH sector a week ago. If you zoom all the way in on it in the galmap, the gas cloud barely reaches the edge of the white indicator dot.

I had the same situation with mine...there must be some other scientific explanation (other than the black hole swallowing theory), seeing as yours had a Neutron Star at its heart.
I think our nebulae might just be old, the gas beginning to compact/fade and dissipate.

 

[Kolato]

Probably just a very young planetary nebulae. That's my guess at least.

 

[Andrew Gaspurr]

Yes, the planetary nebulae would both be very young as the gas did not yet expand so much. Neutron stars and black holes alike are the result of a supernova blast so both were created by a massive star going boom. In the back hole's case it just was a more massive star of more than 20 solar masses.

 

[roboteconomist]

Yes, the planetary nebulae would both be very young as the gas did not yet expand so much. Neutron stars and black holes alike are the result of a supernova blast so both were created by a massive star going boom. In the back hole's case it just was a more massive star of more than 20 solar masses.

I did a quick skim of the "normal sized" PNs in the neighborhood of mine and they are all 40-60 million years younger and their neutron stars are 20-30% less massive.

 

[Andrew Gaspurr]

If you try to rely on the ages given in the stellar descriptions you'll go mad eventually. There are O type stars out there which are hundreds of millions of years old where they usually should go supernova within ten million years or even less. Alas, the age data is not very reliable.