Star shows are the order of the day at the observatories that science uses to explore the depths of the cosmos. One that has already been orbiting the Earth for more than three decades and deciphering the mysteries of the universe is the Hubble Space Telescopewhich with its lenses has captured a wonderful Necklace Nebula.
The nebula is so named because it is made up of two massive stars: a dwarf and a giant. The larger one surrounds the smaller one and together they expel an impressive amount of gas to shape the images that were captured with Hubble.
according to what reports the official Hubble site, this is a recently discovered planetary nebula. The bright remains of this ordinary star show that its characteristics are similar to our Sun.
The nebula consists of a bright ring, measuring 19 trillion kilometers in diameter, studded with dense, glowing knots of gas that look like diamonds on a necklace. The knots glow brightly due to the absorption of ultraviolet light from the central stars.
The pair of stars that orbited together in this region were responsible for causing the nebula, approximately 10,000 years ago.
One of the aging stars swelled to the point where it engulfed its companion star. This caused the largest star to spin so fast that much of its gaseous envelope expanded into space.
The Necklace Nebula’s shape is due to a giant star enveloping its companion star. The cores of the two stars spiraled toward each other, then ejected the surrounding gas, leaving behind knots of dense gas.
Learn more about the composition of the nebula: pic.twitter.com/YOKfSSJ8Zc
— Hubble Space Telescope (@HubbleTelescope) March 14, 2023
Thanks to its centrifugal force, most of the gas escaped along the star’s equator and thus a dense ring was produced. The embedded glowing knots are the densest clumps of gas in the ring.
In this region called PN G054.2-03.4, the stars revolve furiously around each other, completing one orbit in just over a day.
The Necklace Nebula is located 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.. In this composite image, taken on July 2, 2011, Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 captured the glow of hydrogen (blue), oxygen (green), and nitrogen (red).
