The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has sent another stunning image of the universe to Earth.
The image captures a structure in the constellation Gemini, the nature of which puzzled astronomers at first. Education consists of two rounded shares, which were taken as separate objects. Scientists assigned them the designations NGC 2371 and NGC 2372.
However, further observations showed that the unusual structure is a planetary nebula located at a distance of approximately 4500 light-years from us.
Planetary nebulae actually have nothing to do with planets. Such formations are formed when dying stars shed their outer layers into space and these shells begin to scatter in all directions.
In the case of the imprinted structure, the planetary nebula took the form of two "ghostly" regions, in which dim and brighter zones are observed.
In the initial stages of their existence, planetary nebulae look quite intriguing, but then their brilliance quickly weakens. On a cosmic scale, such structures exist for a very short time - only a few tens of thousands of years.
Source: 3dnews.ru