Morphology and Evolution of Galactic and Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae

Abstract

Planetary nebulae (PNe) exist in a range of different morphologies, from very simple and symmetric round shells, to elliptical, bipolar, and even quadrupolar shapes. They present extremely complex ensembles of filaments, knots, ansae, and shell multiplicity. It is then overwhelmingly complicated to derive reasonable evolutionary paths to justify the observed shapes of PNe. The confrontation between the evolution of the shells and that of the central stars is needed to understand the origin of the morphological variety. We present some background and recent results on the correlations between PN morphology and PN nuclei (PNNi) evolution, including a study on the Magellanic Cloud PNe.