CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A telescope in Chile has captured a stunning new picture of a grand and graceful cosmic butterfly.
The National Science Foundation’s NoirLab released the picture Wednesday.
Snapped last month by the Gemini South telescope, the aptly named Butterfly Nebula is 2,500 to 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. A single light-year is 6 trillion miles.
At the heart of this bipolar nebula is a white dwarf star that cast aside its outer layers of gas long ago. The discarded gas forms the butterflylike wings billowing from the aging star, whose heat causes the gas to glow.
Schoolchildren in Chile chose this astronomical target to celebrate 25 years of operation by the International Gemini Observatory.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
latest_posts
- 1
They died 'doing what they loved': The stories of workers in their 80s who died on the job - 2Scientists find evidence that an asteroid contains tryptophan
- 3Top 15 Supportable Design Brands Coming out on top
- 4The most effective method to Pick A Trade-in vehicle Stage
- 5The year's first meteor shower and supermoon clash in January skies
- Inside Plan with Houseplants: An Aide
- Family Holiday spots
- Ancient Egyptian pharaoh's boat is being reassembled in public at the Grand Egyptian Museum
- France will build a new aircraft carrier as it increases defense spending
- NASA releases new photos of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
- What's A Decent FICO rating?
- What exactly is the Upside Down in 'Stranger Things'? The wormhole revelation, explained.
- Cyclone causes blackout, flight chaos in Brazil's Sao Paulo
- AI’s errors may be impossible to eliminate – what that means for its use in health care
