Emerging Butterfly

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hub­ble SM4 ERO Team

A newly updated Hub­ble wows us with this image of the Bug Neb­ula. Also known as the But­ter­fly Neb­ula, this new image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope shows glow­ing gas shot out from a cen­tral star. The wings of the but­ter­fly stretch for more than two-light years, about half the dis­tance to the Sun’s near­est neigh­bor, Alpha Cen­tauri.

The gas in the neb­ula is hot; about 36,000 degrees Fahren­heit. Also, it is mov­ing away from the cen­tral star very fast. The gas is tear­ing across space fast enough to travel the dis­tance from the Earth to the Moon in 24 min­utes. The cen­tral star of the But­ter­fly Neb­ula, also known as NGC 6302, was sim­i­lar to the Sun but about five times more mas­sive. This dying star is now throw­ing out waves of gas and dust. Radi­a­tion from the star causes this gas to glow and cre­ates what astronomers call a plan­e­tary neb­ula.

The But­ter­fly Neb­ula lies about 3,800 light years away toward the con­stel­la­tion Scor­pius, the scorpion.

The image was taken by the Wide Field Cam­era 3 and installed by NASA astro­nauts in May 2009. The repair mis­sion updated the 19-year-old orbit­ing obser­va­tory giv­ing astronomers wider views and bet­ter ways of study­ing the universe.