A Bug of Fire and Ice
The Bug Nebula, NGC 6302, imaged by WFPC2 on the Hubble Space Telescope CREDIT: ESA/NASA and Albert Zijlstra (JBCA).
Thewhite/blue filaments reaching down from the central star and the orange/red colours remind me of The Ancient of Days by William Blake. The colours and texture also evoke a dramatic Turner sunset. That second comparison is probably quite appropriate as this spacescape shows the later stages of an extremely hot star that has blown off its outer layers to form a nebula of compressed gas, dust and hailstones.
The false-colour image was created using two observations with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on the Hubble Space Telescope. One observation looked at the light from hydrogen (the blue in the image) and the other looked at light from ionized nitrogen (the red parts of the image).
Comments: A Bug of Fire and Ice
Wow, that's amazing!
Posted by Pierre Nel on Wednesday 03rd Sep 2008 (21:06 UTC)
Hi
I publish an educational website for newbie astronomers at: www.cheapastro.com
No ads, no profit, just good science.
All comments welcome
Posted by Steve on Thursday 11th Sep 2008 (07:24 UTC)
Yes, great picture. I love to look at Nebulea like this. To me it looks like the brown areas are basking in the bright light, like people stood looking into bright light as a door opens...
I could look at Nebulea all day, shame they don;t look like that through a telecope.
Posted by Steve from WhyAstronomy on Saturday 27th Sep 2008 (10:05 UTC)