Sharpless 2-71

Sharpless 2-71 is an irregular planetary nebula in the constellation Aquila, also catalogued as PN G035.9-01.1. It is a shell of gas associated with a dying star, not a planet.

Rudolph Minkowski discovered Sharpless 2-71 in 1946. He initially classified it as a diffuse and peculiar nebulosity because its true nature was not yet clear.

A study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society identified Sharpless 2-71 as a strong candidate for planetary-nebula formation influenced by triple-star interactions. That possibility helps explain its unusually complex structure.

Stewart Sharpless included the object in his 1959 catalog of H II regions, while noting that it might actually be a planetary nebula. Later spectroscopic work made the planetary-nebula classification more secure.