Friday, December 21, 2012

APOD 2.7

See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download 
the highest resolution version available.

Some planetary nebulas such as this are extraordinarily complicated. When a nebula is formed there is usually a simple shape after the sun dies and then a normal nebula is formed. The common shapes include rings, spheres, helixes, and other rounded figures however clearly this picture is not as simple. The Hubble telescope is going to investigate this strange occurrence and astronomers hope that they will find out the reason for one such as complicated. The current hypothesis is that there was a binary star and this is the result of that explosion. There are no doubt other nebulas as strange and amazing as this.

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