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
Upgrading the Healthy benefit of Your Local Vegetables - 2Instructions to Comprehend and Use Open Record Extra Offers
- 3British-Egyptian dissident apologises for tweets as Tories push for UK deportation
- 4The Most Rousing Ladies Business visionaries of Today
- 5Figure out How to Modify Your Pre-assembled Home for Greatest Solace and Stylish Allure
- Struggling to keep your New Year's resolutions? Here's how to keep yourself on track
- Relish the World: Notable Caf\u00e9s You Really want to Attempt
- This Week In Space podcast: Episode 188 — A New NASA Leader Rises?
- Must-See Attractions in Washington, D.C.
- Man triggers smoke bomb during failed crypto robbery
- IDF finds weapon of slain hostage Capt. Daniel Perez in booby-trapped Gaza compound
- New science points to 4 distinct types of autism
- Step by step instructions to Think about Disc Rates Across Various Banks
- Asia's migrant workers debate if Gulf jobs are worth deadly risk of Iran war
