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
Tire Brands for Senior Drivers: Guaranteeing Security and Solace - 2Can scientists detect life without knowing what it looks like? Research using machine learning offers a new way
- 35 Advancement Developments in Biotechnology
- 4Bolsonaro says hallucinatory effects of meds made him tamper with ankle tag
- 5Instructions to Really Oversee Unsold SUVs in the Auto Business
- The most effective method to Explore Moral Situations in Brain research with Your Certification
- Antimatter took to the road for the very first time. Here’s why it matters
- NATO official says members often aren't buying weapons together, and it's a mistake
- Flu activity in US could continue to rise for weeks, top CDC epidemiologist says
- the Kinds of Thailand: Decision in favor of Your Number one Thai Dish!
- IDF strikes Hamas terror cell operating near Israeli troops in northern Gaza
- Uranus's small moons are dark, red, and water-poor
- Reports: Germany plans expansion of foreign intelligence powers
- California is completely free of drought for the first time in 25 years
