#planetary nebula

[theofficialastronomy101]

This is one of the strongest solar storms in ages. View from ISS is incredible.

[voidbloom20]

The Statue of Liberty Nebula🌌🗽✨

[quiltofstars]

The Bear Claw Nebula, Sh2-200 // Michele Bayliss

[livingforstars]

M2-9: Wings of a Butterfly Nebula - December 23rd, 1997.

"Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and M2-9 pictured above, the stars transform themselves from normal stars to white dwarfs, by casting off their outer gaseous envelopes. The expended gas frequently forms an impressive display called a planetary nebula that fades gradually over thousand of years. M2-9, a butterfly planetary nebula 2100 light-years away, shown in representative colours, has wings that tell a strange but incomplete tale. In the center, two stars orbit inside a gaseous disk 10 times the orbit of Pluto. The expelled envelope of the dying star breaks out from the disk, creating the bipolar appearance. Much remains unknown about the physical processes that cause planetary nebulae."

[lady--lucrezia]

The Beauty of Space

eagle nebula

butterfly nebula

helix nebula (detail)

veil nebula

multiwavelength andromeda

canes venatici galaxies

coronal loops on the sun

earth from below

[thefirststarr]

The very faint planetary nebula, known as Abell 7, is about 1,800 light-years from Earth. It is located just south of Orion toward the constellation Lepus, The Hare. Posing against the Milky Way stars, its simple spherical shape about 8 light-years in diameter is revealed in this deep telescopic image. The beautiful and complex shapes seen within the cosmic cloud are enhanced by emission from hydrogen and oxygen atoms, otherwise it would be much too faint to be appreciated by the eye. A planetary nebula represents a very brief final phase in stellar evolution that our Sun will experience 5 billion years hence, as the nebula's central, once sun-like star loses its outer layers. Abell 7 is estimated to be 20,000 years old, but its central star, seen here as a fading white dwarf, is about 10 billion years old.

Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Pugh

[cosmic-perspective]

3 nights on M97 the Owl Nebula in Ursa Major. A planetary nebula 2,030 light-years away, formed from the gas shed by a dying star. Follow me here to join me on my journey into amateur astrophotography!

[colorpicked-pride-flags-jwst]

Apagender flag colorpicked from planetary nebula NGC 6072