Water-vapour masers, typical of the envelopes in giant stars, are not expected to persist in planetary nebulae due to the ultraviolet radiation of the remnant star that progressively destroys the molecules. Recently, we have reported the first unambiguous detection of water maser emission in a planetary nebula, K 3–35 (Miranda et al. 2001). The water masers in K3–35 were detected at the center of the nebula, along the minor axis, at a radius of ~85 AU and also at the surprisingly large distance of 5000 AU from the star, at the tips of the bipolar lobes. The existence of these water molecules is puzzling, and probably we are observing the very moment of transformation of a giant star into a planetary nebula. Miranda et al. (2001) also report the presence of polarization in the OH 1665 MHz masers, which are distributed towards the central star in a torus-like structure. Here we review the main results on this source.
A search for water maser emission toward obscured post-AGB star and planetary nebula candidates