Baez, P. Moraga, et al. "Portrait of NGC 6537: A Rapidly Evolving, Bipolar Planetary Nebula as Seen with JWST and ALMA." Proceedings of the 245th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Ed. AAS. AAS, USA: n.p., 2025. Print.
The class of pinched-waist bipolar planetary nebulae (PNe) offer unique opportunities to explore wind shocks and the evolution of dust and molecular gas in high-energy radiation environments. We present the first results from a sweeping subarcsecond line and continuum imaging survey of one of the archetype objects, NGC 6537, using the combined power of JWST+ALMA. Our study combines newly obtained JWST/NIRCam H2, BrĪ±, [Fe II], and PAH imaging with archival ALMA 3 mm interferometric molecular line and continuum mapping observations of NGC 6537. We demonstrate how the combination of JWST/NIRCam and ALMA imaging reveals regions within the nebula where dust and molecular gas survives and evolves under the influence of intense UV and soft X-ray irradiation by NGC 6537's recently revealed central star, as well as where shocks are actively sculpting the nebula. Between the nebula's equatorial torus and its lobes lie an intervening, clearly defined but morphologically complex zone of gas and dust that is heavily irradiated by the central star. This presence and extent of this PDR-like region within NGC 6537 is revealed via ALMA mapping of irradiation-sensitive molecular lines and line ratios (e.g., HNC/HCN). This research is supported by NSF grant AST-2206033 to RIT and by grant number JWST-GO-04571.001-A from STScI under program number 4571 (provided through a grant from the STScI under NASA contract NAS5-03127).