NASA recently published a spectacular picture of a fascinating nebula that resembles a dainty butterfly. The image was acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The nebula, termed a planetary nebula, is the expanding gaseous envelope of a dying Sun-like star.

The dazzling butterfly wings are actually churning gases, heated to over 20,000 degrees Celsius. They are expanding at more than 1,000,000 km per hour; at such a staggering speed, a spacecraft would travel from Earth to the Moon in less than 30 minutes!

The bare, blazing core of the dying star, which had a mass of about five times that of the Sun, resides at the center of this nebula. The star ejected its outer layers of gases, and is now emitting a flux of the energetic ultraviolet radiation that induces the nebula to glow.

This object, termed NGC 6203, is a remarkable example of a planetary nebula. The term planetary nebula was coined by Sir William Herschel (1738-1822), the discoverer of the planet Uranus, as some of these nebulae resemble Uranus, when viewed through a small telescope.

NGC 6302 belongs to our Galaxy, the Milky Way, and is located about 3,800 light-years away. It can be observed in the sky among the stars of the zodiacal constellation Scorpius. It is estimated that NGC 6302 was formed over 2,000 years ago. The butterfly’s wings are more than two light-years across; one light year is equivalent to approximately 10,000 billion km.

For Further Reading:

The Hubble Space Telescope Official Websites:

http://hubblesite.org/
www.spacetelescope.org/

Aymen Mohamed Ibrahem
Senior Astronomy Specialist