Something is amiss in the Butterfly Nebula. When astronomers compared two exposures of this planetary nebula that had been taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009 and 2020, they saw dramatic ...

Planetary nebulae form when red giant stars expel their outermost layers as they run out of helium fuel — becoming hot, dense white dwarf stars that are roughly the size of Earth. The material that ...

When a star runs out of fuel, it sheds its outer layers of gas and, if it doesn't explode in a supernova, forms a glowing shell of ionized gas that expands into space. Shells like these are known as ...

A color rendition of NGC 6302, the Butterfly Nebula, created from black-and-white exposures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2019 and 2020. In the violet-colored regions, strong stellar winds ...

It might have a spooky-sounding name, but the nearby Tarantula Nebula is a thing of exquisite beauty. This cloud of dust and gas is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud — a satellite galaxy of our ...

Stargazers have plenty of reasons to look up throughout August – a month marked by meteor showers, planetary conjunctions and even a visible nebula. Yes, a formation known as the "dumbbell nebula" – ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Will Kalif is a writer, webmaster, and an avid telescope enthusiast currently living in New ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The clouds of gas from which massive stars form will flickerlike a candle over the course of ...