Nebulas resemble butterfly, jewel bug in NASA photos

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has shared photos of two young planetary nebulas resembling a butterfly and a jewel bug.

In its Instagram post Friday, it shared images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

“@NASAHubble’s full range of imaging capabilities are revealed here in these images of two young planetary nebulas,” it said.

According to the post, NGC 6303 is dubbed the Butterfly Nebula because of its wing-like appearance, while NGC 7027 resembles a jewel bug, an insect with a brilliantly colorful metallic shell.

“The researchers have found unprecedented levels of complexity and rapid changes in jets and gas bubbles blasting off of the stars at the centers of both nebulas. Hubble is allowing the researchers to converge on an understanding of the mechanisms underlying the chaos,” it added.

 

 

 

 

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????????? @NASAHubble’s full range of imaging capabilities are revealed here in these images of two young planetary nebulas. NGC 6303 is dubbed the Butterfly Nebula because of its wing-like appearance. In addition, NGC 7027 resembles a jewel bug, an insect with a brilliantly colorful metallic shell. The researchers have found unprecedented levels of complexity and rapid changes in jets and gas bubbles blasting off of the stars at the centers of both nebulas. Hubble is allowing the researchers to converge on an understanding of the mechanisms underlying the chaos. Image Credits: NASA, ESA and J. Kastner (RIT)? ? #Space #NASA #Hubble

A post shared by NASA (@nasa) on

Jun 18, 2020 at 2:33pm PDT

“In particular, the new Hubble images reveal in vivid detail how both nebulas are splitting themselves apart on extremely short timescales—allowing astronomers to see changes over the past couple decades,” Nasa said in a press release.

“Some of this rapid change may be indirect evidence of one star merging with its companion star.” – RC, GMA News