Flower in Circinus

Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hub­ble Her­itage Team (STScI/AURA)

A red flower blos­soms in the south­ern con­stel­la­tion of Circi­nus in this image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope. NGC 5315 is a plan­e­tary nebula.

Explore the image. Do you see any other pat­terns in the nebula?

The image clearly shows glow­ing gas ejected by the dying star. Plan­e­tary neb­u­lae have noth­ing to do with plan­ets. They do resem­ble plan­ets when viewed through ground-based tele­scopes. Plan­e­tary neb­u­lae are cre­ated when stars sim­i­lar to the Sun cast off their outer shells of mate­r­ial into space dur­ing the last stages of their lives. These bub­bles con­tinue to expand into space. The white dwarf, glow­ing hot and bright in the cen­ter of the neb­ula, gives off intense ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion and sends out a strong solar wind. The ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion causes the gas cloud to glow. The stel­lar wind blow­ing from the cen­tral star within NGC 5315 has cre­ated a clear cav­ity at the cen­ter. Our Sun will not become a plan­e­tary neb­ula for another 4 bil­lion to 5 bil­lion years.

The X-shaped pat­tern in the outer lay­ers of NGC 5315 show that gas was thrown out by the star in two direc­tions. Sci­en­tists also believe that the star may be spin­ning as mate­r­ial is thrown away from the star.

NGC 5315 is about 7,000 light-years from Earth toward the south­ern con­stel­la­tion Circi­nus. This faint con­stel­la­tion was cre­ated by Nicholas de Lacaille dur­ing the mid 18th cen­tury. While the con­stel­la­tion has no ancient mythol­ogy, Lacaille described the shape as that of a draw­ing com­pass; one used to draw circles.