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
Sea Ice Hits New Low in Hottest Year on Record for the Arctic - 2Qatar, Ireland accuse Israel of using chemical weapons on Palestinians, demand watchdog probe use
- 3Investigating Free Cell Phones: What You Really want to Be aware
- 4‘Trip of suffering’: Gaza evacuee details 24-hour journey to South Africa
- 5Death toll from floods in Afghanistan rises to 61
- Financial plan Cordial Home Redesigns That Add Worth
- Scientists reveal earliest evidence for shifting of Earth’s crust
- Emergent Cold LatAm opens state-of-the-art cold storage hub in Guadalajara
- Rescuers again fail to free whale stranded on Germany's Baltic coast
- Investigating the World's Chief Authentic Urban communities to Visit
- South Africa collects record $117B tax haul
- People who talk with their hands seem more clear and persuasive – new research
- Attorney-General to High Court: Gov’t violating draft ruling, risking rule of law
- Brazil's Bolsonaro to continue his sentence at home because of poor health
