A dying star is throwing a cosmic tantrum in this combined image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), which NASA has lent to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In death, the star's dusty outer layers are unraveling into space, glowing from the intense ultraviolet radiation being pumped out by the hot stellar core.
This object, called the Helix nebula, lies 650 light-years away, in the constellation of Aquarius. Also known by the catalog number NGC 7293, it is a typical example of a class of objects called planetary nebulae. Discovered in the 18th century, these cosmic works of art were erroneously named for their resemblance to gas-giant planets.
The death of stars is beautiful.
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2368.html
Copying/Pasting full texts is frowned upon by the community. Sharing content by itself adds no original content and no value.
Sharing content and adding value by:
Repeated copy/paste posts are considered spam. Spam is discouraged by the community, and may result in action from the cheetah bot.
Creative Commons: If you are posting content under a Creative Commons license, please attribute and link according to the specific license. If you are posting content under CC0 or Public Domain please consider noting that at the end of your post.
Not indicating that the content you copy/paste is not your original work could be seen as plagiarism.
If you are actually the original author, please do reply to let us know!
Thank You!