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IMAGE OF THE DAY: NASA’s Hubble Telescope Captures Colorful Planetary Nebula Ringed by Hazy Halo

By  //  November 8, 2021

nebula is known as NGC 2438

NGC 2438 is a planetary nebula, formed after the death of a Sun-like star. The medium-sized star would have expelled its outer layers of gas into space as it died, leaving behind a white-dwarf core. (NASA image)

(NASA) – NGC 2438 is a planetary nebula, formed after the death of a Sun-like star. The medium-sized star would have expelled its outer layers of gas into space as it died, leaving behind a white-dwarf core.

A halo of glowing gas over 4.5 light-years across surrounds the nebula’s brighter inner ring. Many rounds or nearly round planetary nebulae display these halo structures, and astronomers have been investigating how they evolve.

NGC 2438 was one of the nebulae studied, and researchers found that the nebula’s halo glows due to the ionizing radiation of the central white dwarf.

In this color-filled image, blue represents oxygen (O III), green is hydrogen (H-alpha), orange is nitrogen (N II), and red is sulfur (S II).

This Hubble Space Telescope image was captured by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, which gave it its distinctive star shape.

One of the camera’s four detectors provided a magnified view, which would be shrunk down in the final image to match the other three, creating a unique shape.

For more information on the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 image shape, visit https://www.nasa.gov/content/about-facts-hubble-faqs.

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