Extra, extra, see all about it! A cosmic butterfly was spotted by NASA’s Hubble telescope some days ago. The Twin Jet Nebula is made up of an aging star’s exposed core and a smaller star which both create a fascinating and illuminating rainbow in space.
Space paparazzi cannot get enough of the amazingly notable events that happen in outer space. The cosmic butterfly which displays fascinating colors and surreal textures, was captured as the nebula’s center is slowly collapsing, making the dying star shed its outer layers. The larger, dying star is orbited by the small star or the small white dwarf, which pulls the layers in a bipolar pattern, namely the wide spread wings of the butterfly.
Although the Twin Jet Nebula is not necessarily new on the territories of space, this time the images are extremely fascinating. The Nebula was first time observed in 1947 by an astronomer and it carries the name of PN M2-9, officially.
Scientists believe that the lobes have formed 1.200 years ago and their expansion and glowing shells of gas, clearly visible in the image, represent the final stages of life for old stars with intermediate or low mass. Apart from ejecting the thin and colorful outer layers, the special star has also exposed the core which now illuminates the layers, leading to the absolutely spectacular light show.
The streams of material close to the center inside the blue colored lobes, namely the violet twin jets that are streaming into the space at speeds which exceed 1 million km per hour, look absolutely and literally out of this world. This offers the nebula a speeding ticket. The one million km per hour makes the cosmic butterfly gain its absolutely fascinating shape and mix of colors.
The images of the nebula offer us the opportunity to gain some perspective over the fate of our own Sun, some 5 billion years later. At that certain point in time, the sun will turn into a red giant which will eject its own nebula and compress it into a white dwarf.
While astrologists enchant their eyes with the amazing cosmic butterfly, us, common people, can see the super moon these days, which will wonderfully illuminate the night sky. The moon will be at the perigee phase this time, meaning that it gets at the closest point to the Earth. We won’t exactly see a rainbow of colors but we will certainly see a reddish moon, fading in colors of orange and pale yellow. Although it doesn’t come close to the great space butterfly, the supermoon will certainly provide the bestselling show for the “down to earth” ones of us.
Image Source: danspace77.com
