— NASA's Hubble confirms that galaxies are the ultimate recyclers — New observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are expanding astronomers' understanding of the ways in which galaxies continuously recycle immense volumes of hydrogen gas and heavy…
— Frozen comet had a watery past, University of Arizona scientists find — For the first time, scientists have found convincing evidence for the presence of liquid water in a comet, shattering the current paradigm that comets never get warm enough to melt…
— Sugar-grain sized meteorites rocked the climates of early Earth and Mars — Bombardments of 'micro-meteorites' on Earth and Mars four billion years ago may have caused the planets' climates to cool dramatically, hampering their ability to support life, according…
— Astrophysicist: White dwarfs could be fertile ground for other Earths — Planet hunters have found hundreds of planets outside the solar system in the last decade, though it is unclear whether even one might be habitable. But it could be that the best place…
— Integral spots matter a millisecond from doom — ESA's Integral gamma-ray observatory has spotted extremely hot matter just a millisecond before it plunges into the oblivion of a black hole. But is it really doomed? These unique observations…
— MESSENGER spacecraft to swing into orbit around Mercury — At 8:45 p.m. EDT on March 17, the MESSENGER spacecraft will execute a 15-minute manoeuvre that will place it into orbit around Mercury, making it the first craft ever to do so, and…
— Baby stars born to 'napping' parents — Cardiff University astronomers believe that a young star's long 'napping' could trigger the formation of a second generation of smaller stars and planets orbiting around it…
— Oldest objects in solar system indicate a turbulent beginning — Scientists have found that calcium, aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs), some of the oldest objects in the solar system, formed far away from our sun and then later fell back into the…
— Oxygen isotope analysis tells of the wandering life of a dust grain 4.5 billion years ago — Scientists have performed a micro-probe analysis of the core and outer layers of a pea-sized piece of a meteorite some 4.57 billion years old to reconstruct the history of its formation,…
The last confessions of a dying star
Probing a glowing bubble of gas and dust encircling a dying star, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a wealth of previously unseen structures.
The object, called NGC 2371, is a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a Sun-like star. The remnant star visible at the centre of NGC 2371 is the super-hot core of the former red giant, now stripped of its outer layers. Its surface temperature is a scorching 240,000 degrees Fahrenheit. NGC 2371 lies about 4,300 light-years away in the constellation Gemini.
The Hubble image reveals several remarkable features, most notably the prominent pink clouds lying on opposite sides of the central star. This color indicates that they are relatively cool and dense, compared to the rest of the gas in the nebula.
Also striking are the numerous, very small pink dots, marking relatively dense and small knots of gas, which also lie on diametrically opposite sides of the star. These features appear to represent the ejection of gas from the star along a specific direction. The jet's direction has changed with time over the past few thousand years. The reason for this behaviour is not well understood, but might be related to the possible presence of a second star orbiting the visible central star.
A planetary nebula is an expanding cloud of gas ejected from a star that is nearing the end of its life. The nebula glows because of ultraviolet radiation from the hot remnant star at its centre. In only a few thousand years the nebula will dissipate into space. The central star will then gradually cool down, eventually becoming a white dwarf, the final stage of evolution for nearly all stars.
The Hubble picture of NGC 2371 is a false-color image, prepared from exposures taken through filters that detect light from sulphur and nitrogen (red), hydrogen (green), and oxygen (blue). These images were taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in November 2007, as part of the Hubble Heritage program.
Or subscribe for our Newsletter, a free e-mail publication. It is published practically every day.
Stereo view of Phobos captured by NASA spacecraft
XMM-Newton surprised by a rare type of galaxy
Witnessing the formation of distant galaxies
Possibility of finding Earth-like planets on the 'RISE'