Mostly Mute Monday: The Butterfly Nebula (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” –Rabindranath Tagore

When stars like the Sun reach the end of their lives, they all follow fairly predictable patterns:

• Their cores contract, heat up, and start fusing helium into carbon.
• Their outer layers expand into a luminous red giant.
• When nuclear fusion ceases, they blow off their outer layers into a planetary nebula.
• And the core contracts down to a hot, compact, degenerate and low-luminosity white dwarf.

Image credit: Robert Gendler, Jan-Erik Ovaldsen, Allan Hornstrup, IDA, via http://ift.tt/1RqMr64.

But one of the most beautiful dying stars in this fashion, the Butterfly Nebula, is quite uncommon when it comes to the elements found inside, and the history of this object. With a central star at over 200,000 K, it has one of the hottest objects in the Universe inside of it! How did it get this way?

Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team; Reprocessing & Copyright: Francesco Antonucci.

Find out on today’s Mostly Mute Monday!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1RqMsHi

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” –Rabindranath Tagore

When stars like the Sun reach the end of their lives, they all follow fairly predictable patterns:

• Their cores contract, heat up, and start fusing helium into carbon.
• Their outer layers expand into a luminous red giant.
• When nuclear fusion ceases, they blow off their outer layers into a planetary nebula.
• And the core contracts down to a hot, compact, degenerate and low-luminosity white dwarf.

Image credit: Robert Gendler, Jan-Erik Ovaldsen, Allan Hornstrup, IDA, via http://ift.tt/1RqMr64.

But one of the most beautiful dying stars in this fashion, the Butterfly Nebula, is quite uncommon when it comes to the elements found inside, and the history of this object. With a central star at over 200,000 K, it has one of the hottest objects in the Universe inside of it! How did it get this way?

Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team; Reprocessing & Copyright: Francesco Antonucci.

Find out on today’s Mostly Mute Monday!

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1RqMsHi