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
Vote In favor of Your Number one Cell phones - 2Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 25 people, Hamas health authority says
- 3Here are 10 stores where you can get a free Thanksgiving turkey
- 4'Wicked: For Good' was filmed at this surreal National Park in Egypt
- 5Cases of norovirus are on the rise just in time for the holiday season
- Figure out How to Use Your Nursing Abilities for Better Compensation
- Let them eat (Taylor Swift) cake: The baker turning A-listers into life-size desserts
- The most effective method to Quick Track Your Outcome in Advanced Showcasing with a Web-based Degree
- Atorvastatin recall may affect hundreds of thousands of patients – and reflects FDA’s troubles inspecting medicines manufactured overseas
- As cases of a rare, deadly infection rise, doctors worry fewer teens will get vaccinated
- Palestinians tell BBC they were sexually abused in Israeli prisons
- Foreign military officials can become Israel's ambassadors, senior IDF commander tells 'Post'
- Story of ‘first Black Briton’ rewritten by advances in ancient DNA technology
- Monetary Security: Building Serious areas of strength for an Establishment
