The Vibrant Conclusion of a Star Similar to the Sun

This photograph, captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, displays the vibrant final display of a star similar to our Sun. The star is concluding its existence by shedding its outer layers of gas, which have formed a protective covering around its remaining core. The dying star emits ultraviolet light, causing the surrounding material to glow. Positioned at the center is the white dwarf, the burnt-out remnant of the star. Although it will take another 5 billion years, our Sun will eventually exhaust its fuel and envelop itself in stellar remnants.

Within our Milky Way Galaxy, numerous remnants of stars, known as planetary nebulae, are scattered. Despite their name, these objects have no connection to planets. Astronomers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries named them planetary nebulae due to their resemblance, when observed through small telescopes, to the disks of distant planets like Uranus and Neptune. The planetary nebula depicted in this image is referred to as NGC 2440.

The white dwarf situated at the core of NGC 2440 is one of the hottest known, boasting a surface temperature of nearly 400,000 degrees Fahrenheit (200,000 degrees Celsius). The nebula’s disordered structure suggests that the star shed its mass sporadically. During each episode, the star expelled material in varying directions, resulting in the formation of two bow tie-shaped lobes. Additionally, the nebula contains abundant clouds of dust, some of which form elongated, dark streaks pointing away from the star. NGC 2440 is located approximately 4,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Puppis.

This image was captured on February 6, 2007, using Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The colors depicted correspond to the materials expelled by the star, with blue representing helium, blue-green representing oxygen, and red representing nitrogen and hydrogen.

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