Marvelous Butterfly Nebula (Big Picture)

This sharp and colorful close-up of a dying star's nebula was recorded in 2009 by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, installed during the final shuttle servicing mission.

Like many of the bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky, which are often named for flowers or insects, NGC 6302 was named the Butterfly nebula even though its wingspan covers over 3 light-years. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the dying central star of this particular planetary nebula has become exceptionally hot, shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust.

Cutting across a bright cavity of ionized gas, the dust torus surrounding the central star is near the center of this view, almost edge-on to the line-of-sight. Molecular hydrogen has been detected in the hot star's dusty cosmic shroud. NGC 6302 lies about 4,000 light-years away in the arachnologically correct constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). -- NASA