by APOD Robot » Sat Mar 02, 2019 5:06 am
NGC 6302: The Butterfly Nebula
Explanation: The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for
flowers or
insects. Though its wingspan covers over 3 light-years,
NGC 6302 is no exception. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees
C, the dying central star of this particular
planetary nebula has become exceptionally hot, shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. This sharp close-up was recorded by the
Hubble Space Telescope in 2009. The Hubble image data is reprocessed here, showing off the remarkable details of the complex planetary nebula. Cutting across a bright cavity of ionized gas, the dust
torus surrounding the central star is near the center of this view, almost edge-on to the line-of-sight.
Molecular hydrogen has been detected in the hot star's dusty cosmic shroud.
NGC 6302 lies about 4,000 light-years away in the arachnologically correct constellation of the Scorpion (
Scorpius).
[url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190302.html] [img]https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_190302.jpg[/img] [size=150]NGC 6302: The Butterfly Nebula[/size][/url]
[b] Explanation: [/b] The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160506.html]flowers[/url] or [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100425.html]insects[/url]. Though its wingspan covers over 3 light-years, [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6302]NGC 6302[/url] is no exception. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius]C[/url], the dying central star of this particular [url=https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/planetary_nebula.html]planetary nebula[/url] has become exceptionally hot, shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. This sharp close-up was recorded by the [url=https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/story/index.html]Hubble Space Telescope[/url] in 2009. The Hubble image data is reprocessed here, showing off the remarkable details of the complex planetary nebula. Cutting across a bright cavity of ionized gas, the dust [url=http://www.math.tamu.edu/~tkiffe/calc3/revolution3/revolution3.html]torus[/url] surrounding the central star is near the center of this view, almost edge-on to the line-of-sight. [url=https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap161024.html]Molecular hydrogen[/url] [url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005hris.conf..423M]has been detected[/url] in the hot star's dusty cosmic shroud. [url=https://arxiv.org/abs/0711.4359]NGC 6302[/url] lies about 4,000 light-years away in the arachnologically correct constellation of the Scorpion ([url=http://hawastsoc.org/deepsky/sco/index.html]Scorpius[/url]).
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