A lovely release from the Hubble Heritage project. Well worth clicking on for more detail. The image was made using Hubble. It’s a planetary nebula (NGC 2371), the remnants of a star that has ejected its outer layers, with several clues in the composite image as to what might be going on in this system. Here’s some of the accompanying information:
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 behavior is not well understood, but might be related to the possible presence of a second star orbiting the visible central star.
Check out the rest of the Heritage Project here.
-cvj
