Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
The Calabash Nebula, pictured here — which has the technical name OH
231.8+04.2 — is a spectacular example of the death of a low-mass star
like the Sun. This image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope
shows the star going through a rapid transformation from a red giant to a
planetary nebula, during which it blows its outer layers of gas and
dust out into the surrounding space. The recently ejected material is
spat out in opposite directions with immense speed — the gas shown in
yellow is moving close to a million kilometres an hour.
Astronomers
rarely capture a star in this phase of its evolution because it occurs
within the blink of an eye — in astronomical terms. Over the next
thousand years the nebula is expected to evolve into a fully fledged
planetary nebula.
The nebula is also known as the Rotten Egg
Nebula because it contains a lot of sulphur, an element that, when
combined with other elements, smells like a rotten egg — but luckily, it
resides over 5000 light-years away in the constellation of Puppis (The
Poop deck).
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