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What it is : The Little Dumbbell Nebula ( also have it away as Messier 76 , M76 , NGC 650/651 , the Cork Nebula and the Barbell Nebula ) , a wandering nebula
Where it is:3,400 light - years away , in the constellation Perseus
The Little Dumbbell Nebula, a colorful, barbell-shaped cloud of gas, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope
When it was shared : April 23 , 2024
Why it ’s so special : This is a new image of the Little Dumbbell Nebula ( M76 ) , a planetary nebula that ’s a popular target for telescopes in summer in the Northern Hemisphere .
Issued to mark the 34th anniversary of theHubble Space Telescope ’s launch , which fall out on April 24 , 1990 , the image comes from the new information in an archive of 184 terabytes stored at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore .
The Little Dumbbell Nebula is a planetary nebula , which , adverse to what the name suggests , is not the remains of a major planet . Rather , it ’s an expanding shell of gas and dust ejected from a blood-red giant star as it crumple into a dense , spicy white dwarf star . ( The plate ’s bright , round form may have been redolent of a major planet when reckon through former telescopes . )
relate : Speck of visible radiation spotted by Hubble is one of the most tremendous galaxy in the early universe , James Webb scope reveals
Hubble ’s newfangled image shows the Little Dumbbell Nebula as two lobes of glowing gaseous state and dust on both sides of a central Browning automatic rifle . Scientists cogitate the rings were because of a 2nd star that the central white dwarf star has since consumed .
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That white dwarf is a peculiar case . At 216,000 level Fahrenheit ( 120,000 degrees Celsius ) — 24 times hotter than the sun ’s Earth’s surface — it ’s one of the hottest blanched nanus remnants known , European Space Agencyrepresentatives write in astatement . It ’s visible as a pinprick of light in the nebula ’s center field .
The rest of the colorful nebula comprise the detritus and gas squeeze out by the fundamental sensation at 2 million mph ( 3.2 million kilometer / h ) . It ’s glowing because of ultraviolet radiation from the star , with crimson denoting nitrogen and gentle evidence oxygen .
The Little Dumbbell Nebula will be visible for about 15,000 more old age before the last of its gun vanishes into space , according to the statement .
