NGC 2022 is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Orion, located at a distance of 8.21 kilolight-years from the Sun. The object has the shape of a prolate spheroid with a major to minor axis ratio of 1.2, an apparent size of 28″, and a halo extending out to 40″, which is about the angular diameter of Jupiter as seen from Earth.
It is a double-shell planetary nebula with a wind-compressed inner shell and a more nebulous second shell. The linear radius of the inner shell is estimated at 0.326 ± 0.039 ly. It is expanding with a velocity of 28±2 km/s. The second shell is nearly circular and is expanding more slowly than the inner. The mass of the ionized elements in the planetary nebula is 0.19 M☉. A faint outer halo consists of the remains of material ejected during the central star’s asymptotic giant branch stage.
NGC 2022 lies 11° away from the Galactic Plane, which position suggests it was formed from a low-mass star. The elemental abundances are similar to those in the Sun, although carbon is about 50% higher and sulfur is a factor of two lower. The central star of this nebula has a visual magnitude of 15.92, a temperature of 122,000 K, and is radiating 852 times the luminosity of the Sun from a photosphere that has only 6.55% of the Sun’s radius.
