Impressive space butterfly captured by telescope

Butterfly-like with its symmetrical structure, beautiful colors and intricate patterns, this striking gas bubble, known as NGC 2899, appears to float and flutter across the sky in this new image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). This object has never before been photographed in such stunning detail, even with the faint outer edges of the planetary nebula glowing against the background stars.

NGC 2899’s vast swaths of gas extend up to a maximum of two light-years from its center, glowing brightly in front of the stars of the Milky Way as the gas reaches temperatures of over ten thousand degrees. The high temperatures are due to the large amount of radiation from the nebula’s parent star, which causes the hydrogen gas in the nebula to glow in a reddish halo around the blue oxygen gas.

Located between 3,000 and 6,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Vela (The Sails), this object has two central stars, believed to give it an almost symmetrical appearance. After one star reached the end of its life and dumped its outer layers, the other star now interferes with the gas flow, forming the two-lobed shape seen here. Only about 10-20% of planetary nebulae show this type of bipolar shape.

Astronomers were able to capture this highly detailed image of NGC 2899 using the FORS instrument installed on UT1 (Antu), one of the four 8.2-meter telescopes that make up ESO’s VLT in Chile. Representing the FOcal Reducer and Low Dispersion Spectrograph, this high-resolution instrument was one of the first to be installed on ESO’s VLT and is behind numerous beautiful images and discoveries by ESO. FORS has contributed to light observations from a gravitational wave source, investigated the first known interstellar asteroid, and has been used to further study the physics behind the formation of complex planetary nebulae.

This image was created under the ESO Cosmic Gems program, an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing, or visually appealing objects using ESO telescopes, for educational and public outreach purposes. The program uses the telescope time that cannot be used for scientific observations. All the data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and is made available to astronomers through ESO’s scientific archive.