The Fornax Planetary Nebula - an LRS Pilot Study

Our goal is to characterize the Fornax planetary nebula (PN). This PN is the only one known within the Fornax Dwarf Galaxy and was the most distant PN observed with the Infrared Spectrometer (IRS) on Spitzer. The rarity of PNe known in Local Group dwarf galaxies means we have few options to characterize the stellar ejecta with which these objects are enriching their hosts. This makes it essential to study the few that are know in order to understand their stellar populations and better inform the models of distant, unresolvable galaxies. The PN is so faint, though, that while hints of spectral features can be seen in the IRS spectrum, it was too noisy to analyze. The high sensitivity of the Low Resolution Spectrometer (LRS) on JWST's MIRI makes it the ideal instrument for this study, requiring less than 3 hours to complete.