planetary nebula

1. 1.

   a nebula that was once thought to be a star with its planets but is now thought to be a very hot star surrounded by an expanding envelope of ionized gases that emit a fluorescent glow because of intense radiation from the star

   Broadernebula

Questions about planetary nebula

What does planetary nebula mean?

planetary nebula means "a nebula that was once thought to be a star with its planets but is now thought to be a very hot star surrounded by an expanding envelope of ionized gases that emit a fluorescent glow because of intense radiation from the star".

Is planetary nebula a common word?

planetary nebula is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.