Hubble is no longer the gold standard, but it can still capture some impressive photos. The telescope’s latest snapshot is our clearest view of the Egg Nebula to date. About 3,000 light-years away from Earth, this nebula takes its name from the dense layer of gas and dust that envelops its central star.
The new image shows four rays of the nebula’s starlight (from that central star) emerging from its gas-and-dust “shell.” Hot molecular hydrogen is flowing rapidly on either side of the disk-like cloud. The orange highlights in this image reflect flashes of infrared light.
As rays of starlight spread outward from the center, they illuminate concentric rings of gas. The wave-like pattern of the gas suggests that it was formed by constant bursts from the star, with a little more ejected every few hundred years.
The Egg Nebula, found in the Cygnus constellation, was first discovered in 1975. Nebulae are rarely found in this preplanetary phase. Because the phases last only a few thousand years (and because they are often faint), they are relatively difficult for astronomers to identify. By comparing this new image to previous Hubble snapshots of the Egg Nebula, astronomers can learn more about it and shed more light on its processes. But for the rest of us, it turns out to be some pretty sweet eye magic, right?
<a href