Hubble Telescope Captures Shimmering, Cosmic Butterfly in New Image

First Posted: Aug 26, 2015 04:57 PM EDT

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular new image of the Twin Jet Nebula. The new picture highlights the nebula's complex shells and its knots of expanding gas in striking detail.

The latest image looks a bit like a cosmic butterfly. The glowing and expanding shells of gas clearly visible in this image actually represent the final stages of life for an old star of low to intermediate mass. Not only has the star ejected its outer layers, but the exposed remnant core is now illuminating these layers, resulting in a spectacular light show.

What's interesting about this nebula is that it's a bipolar nebula. Ordinary planetary nebulae have one star at their center. Bipolar nebulae, though, have two in a binary star system. Astronomers have found that the two stars in this pair each have around the same mass as the sun, ranging from .6 to 1.0 solar masses for the smaller star, and from 1.0 to 1.4 solar masses for its larger companion. The larger star is approaching the end of its days, and has already ejected its outer layers of gas into space, whereas its partner is further evolved, and is a small white dwarf.

The characteristic shape of the wings of the Twin Jet Nebula is most likely caused by the motion of the two central stars around each other. It's believed that as the dying star and white dwarf orbit around their common center of mass, the ejected gas from the dying star is pulled into two lobes rather than expanding in a uniform sphere.

For more information about the Hubble Space Telescope, visit NASA's website.

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TagsNASA, Hubble Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Images, telescope, Nebula, Nebulae