The European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescope captured an image of a spectacular butterfly-shaped gas bubble in the Milky Way.
The striking planetary nebula, known as NGC 2899, appears to hover and hover across the sky in this pristine image of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.
A planetary nebula is created when a star runs out of fuel to burn and ejects its outer layers of gas into space.
NGC 2899 has never before been captured in such detail, revealing the faint outer edges of an expansive layer of gas shining on the background stars.
The blue parts of the ‘butterfly’, located up to 6,500 light years away, consist of oxygen gas, while the surrounding reddish tint along the edge is hydrogen.
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This highly detailed image of the planetary nebula NGC 2899 was captured using the FORS instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope in northern Chile. This object has never before been photographed in such surprising detail.
“This object has never before been photographed in such stunning detail, even with the faint outer edges of the planetary nebula shining on the background stars,” ESO said in a statement.
Despite their name, planetary nebulae (shells of gas and dust that have been ejected from a dying star) have nothing to do with planets.
They form when ancient stars with up to six times the mass of our Sun reach the end of their lives, collapse and expel the expanding layers of gas, rich in heavy elements.
Intense UV radiation energizes and ignites these mobile projectiles, causing them to glow brightly for thousands of years.
Planetary nebulae eventually scatter slowly through space, meaning they are relatively short-lived and rare – about 1,500 are known in the galaxy, according to estimates by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
NGC 2899, discovered by the English astronomer John Herschel in 1835, is located somewhere between 3,000 and 6,500 light years away in the southern constellation Vela.
NGC 2899’s vast strips of gas extend up to a maximum of two light years from its center and reach up to 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit or 10,000 degrees Celsius.
An image of the Omega Nebula, captured by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) with a pink dusty center
Such 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.
NGC 2899 has two central stars, believed to give it an almost symmetrical appearance.
After one star reached the end of its life and threw off its outer layers, the other star interferes with the gas flow, forming the two butterfly-shaped lobes seen here.
ESO said that only 10 to 20 percent of planetary nebulae display this type of bipolar shape.
Astronomers were able to capture this image using the FORS (Focal Reducer and Low Dispersion Spectrograph) instrument installed on UT1, one of the four 27-foot telescopes that make up the VLT in Chile.
This high-resolution instrument was one of the first to be installed in VLT, which began operating in 1998, and is behind other impressive images.
In 2013, FORS returned an image of a unique green nebula reminiscent of the Slimer ghost from the 1984 Ghostbusters movie.
The bright green planetary nebula IC 1295 surrounding a dim, dying star. It is located about 3,300 light years away in the constellation Scutum (The Shield).
The planetary nebula IC 1295 was revealed around a faint, dying star located about 3,300 light-years away in the constellation Scutum.
He also previously captured a photo of the Omega Nebula about 6,500 light years away in the Sagittarius constellation, with a dusty pink center.
FORS has been used to study in depth the physics behind the formation of complex planetary nebulae.
He has also contributed to light observations from a gravitational wave source and investigated the first known interstellar asteroid.
Called ‘Oumuamua by its discoverers, the asteroid is up to a quarter of a mile (400 meters) long and very elongated, probably 10 times longer than it is wide.
THE VERY LARGE TELESCOPE IS A POWERFUL LAND-BASED INSTRUMENT IN CHILE
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) built the most powerful telescope ever made in the Atacama desert of northern Chile.
It’s called a Very Large Telescope (VLT) and it’s widely regarded as one of the most advanced optical instruments ever manufactured.
It consists of four telescopes, whose The main mirrors are 27 feet (8.2 meters) in diameter.
There are also four six-foot (1.8-meter) diameter mobile auxiliary telescopes.
The big telescopes are called Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun.
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) built the most powerful telescope ever made in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and called it the Very Large Telescope (VLT).
The first of the Unit’s Telescopes, ‘Antu’, entered into routine scientific operations on April 1, 1999.
Telescopes can work together to form a giant ‘interferometer’.
This interferometer allows images to be filtered to detect any unnecessary objects that darken, and as a result astronomers can see details up to 25 times finer than with individual telescopes.
He has been involved in detecting the first image of an extrasolar planet and tracking individual stars that move around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
He also observed the glow of the farthest known gamma-ray burst,
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