CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A telescope in Chile has captured a stunning new picture of a grand and graceful cosmic butterfly.
The National Science Foundation’s NoirLab released the picture Wednesday.
Snapped last month by the Gemini South telescope, the aptly named Butterfly Nebula is 2,500 to 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. A single light-year is 6 trillion miles.
At the heart of this bipolar nebula is a white dwarf star that cast aside its outer layers of gas long ago. The discarded gas forms the butterflylike wings billowing from the aging star, whose heat causes the gas to glow.
Schoolchildren in Chile chose this astronomical target to celebrate 25 years of operation by the International Gemini Observatory.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
LATEST POSTS
- 1
Unusual 'ingredients' helped stars form in a galaxy near the Milky Way - 2Surf Spot Mechanics: Bells Beach
- 3Fundamental Home Machines for Improved Solace in Summer
- 4The gay hockey show no one saw coming — and everyone is suddenly obsessed with
- 513 must-see moon events in 2026: Eclipses, supermoons, conjunctions and more
- Excited visitors for NASA's moon launch jockey for prime views
- Photos: Hundreds Gather at Bondi Beach After Deadly Attack
- Cyprus: War-related tourism concerns and climate change efforts
- Step by step instructions to Get a good deal on Your Rooftop Substitution Venture
- What's A Decent FICO rating?
- When fake data is a good thing – how synthetic data trains AI to solve real problems
- Humpback whale stranded on Germany's Baltic coast frees itself
- Fact Check: Israeli Channel 13, Al Jazeera Did NOT Confirm Hezbollah Captured All Or Part Of Kiryat Shmona
- 75% of US adults may meet criteria for obesity under new definition, study finds
