NASA's Hubble Telescope Provides Pictures Of Two Stars Going Haywire

It is very difficult to understand the universe and every day we get to know some fascinating things about it. Astronomers have identified such crazy fireworks happening in two nearby young planetary nebulas, NGC 6302 and NGC 7027. NGC 6302 resembles a Butterfly because of its wing-like appearance whereas NGC 7027 is similar to that of a jewel bug, an insect with a brilliantly colorful metallic shell. The astronomers have identified that both the planetary nebulae were complex and are changing their structures rapidly.  

At the end of their lives, Sun-like stars shed layers of hot gas. To investigate how these ethereal clouds develop, Hubble took new, colorful images of two nearby planetary nebulae, including this picture of the Butterfly Nebula. 🦋

Read & see more: https://t.co/OCnWcn8ZQs pic.twitter.com/t3poCnYhhI

— Hubble (@NASAHubble) June 18, 2020

Joel Kastner of Rochester Institute of Technology, in a NASA blog, said that "When I looked in the Hubble archive and realized no one had observed these nebulas with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 across its full wavelength range, I was floored. these new multi-wavelength Hubble observations provide the most comprehensive view to date of both of these spectacular nebulas. As I was downloading the resulting images, I felt like a kid in a candy store."

Kastner further added that "The nebula NGC 7027 shows emission at an incredibly large number of different wavelengths, each of which highlights not only a specific chemical element in the nebula, but also the significant, ongoing changes in its structure."

The Butterfly Nebula:

Kastner said that, "The S-shape in the iron emission from the Butterfly Nebula is a real eye-opener." Another scientist Balick asserted that, "This iron emission is a sensitive tracer of energetic collisions between slower winds and fast winds from the stars. It's commonly observed in supernova remnants and active galactic nuclei, and outflowing jets from newborn stars, but is very rarely seen in planetary nebula."

The Jewel Bug Nebula:

Researchers say that the changes within the Jewel Bug Nebula are different when compared to that of the Butterfly Nebula. Kastner added that, "Something recently went haywire at the very center, producing a new cloverleaf pattern, with bullets of material shooting out in specific directions."

(With Inputs From NASA blog)