planetary nebula

Phil Plait Bad Astronomy VLT_NGC474_PN_distance

Beautifully dying stars and the scale of the Universe

By Phil Plait 2 months ago

Hubble image of Abell 78, a dying star that cast of its outer layers to form a planetary nebula. It underwent a late pulse of energy, sending blobs of gas outward at high speeds. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Guerrero. Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

A star that lived, then died, then lived again, then died for real

By Phil Plait 6 months ago

StDr 56, a possible planetary nebula in the constellation of Triangulum. It’s about the same size as the full Moon on the sky. Credit: Robert Pölz, Marcel Drechsler, Xavier Strottner

So what the heck is StDr 56?

By Phil Plait 9 months ago

Henize 3-1357, aka the Stingray Nebula, seen in 1996 and 2006 by Hubble, has changed significantly over that time, fading in many places. Credit: NASA, ESA, B. Balick (University of Washington), M. Guerrero (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía), and G

The rise and rapid fall of the Stingray Nebula

By Phil Plait 9 months ago

Hubble’s view of the planetary nebula NGC 7662. Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Hajian (University of Waterloo)

Memories of the Blue Snowball

By Phil Plait 11 months ago

ALMA observation of the gas around the dying star R Aquilae showing complex spirals and arcs. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Decin et al.

Cosmic flowers bloom as stars begin to die

By Phil Plait 1 year ago

A deep color image of the planetary nebula NGC 6804 shows it to be a relatively standard example of its kind, but there are glowing red clouds near it whose origin is unclear. Credit: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona

A dying star’s magnetic racing stripes

By Phil Plait 1 year ago

W43A is a rare beast: The expanding gas from a star that’s just beginning its final stage of dying. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Tafoya et al.

Threading a cosmic needle: A fleeting glimpse of a dying star's final moments

By Phil Plait 1 year ago

The planetary nebulae NGC 6302 (left) and 7027 (right), dying stars casting off their outer layers, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Kastner (RIT)

Hubble sees the spectacular deaths of stars like the Sun

By Phil Plait 1 year ago

Gas ejected from the binary star system HD 101584 forms an overall hourglass-shaped nebula. Colors represent velocities: Red is away from us, blue toward us, and green neither toward nor away. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Olofsson et al.

HD 101584: A binary star casts out a bizarre hourglass of gas

By Phil Plait 1 year ago