1 min read

Shells in the Egg Nebula

Shells in the egg nebula

The Egg Nebula is taking a beating. Like a baby chick pecking its way out of an egg, the star in the center of the nebula is casting away shells of gas and dust as it slowly transforms itself into a white dwarf star in this image taken by the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer aboard the Hubble Space Telescope.

A thick torus of dust surrounds the star through which the shell gas is escaping. Newly expelled gas shells escape in beams as can be seen in the original image (top) and in the false-color infrared image shown (bottom). The infrared image is coded in false color to highlight two different types of emission. The red light represents hot hydrogen gas heated by the collisions of expanding shells. The blue light represents light from the central star scattered by the dust in the nebula. It takes light about 3,000 years to reach us from the Egg Nebula, which is hundreds of times the size of our solar system.

Image credit: NASA, R. Thompson (U. Arizona) et al.

Share

Details

Last Updated
Apr 17, 2023
Editor
NASA Hubble Mission Team

Related Terms

Explore More

A montage of Hubble Space Telescope images of our solar system's four giant outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, taken under the OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy) program over 10 years, from 2014 to 2024.
8 min read

NASA’s Hubble Celebrates Decade of Tracking Outer Planets

Article2 days ago
A spiral galaxy filling the view. Its disk holds many bright red spots where stars are forming, dark reddish threads of dust that obscure light, and bluish glowing areas that hold concentrations of older stars. It has a large, glowing yellow oval area at the center, from which two spiral arms wind through the galaxy’s disk. One side of the disk appears rounded (bottom of the image) while the opposite side appears somewhat squared-off (top of the image).
2 min read

Hubble Spots a Spiral in the Celestial River

Article5 days ago
A Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) coronagraph image of quasar 3C 273. It looks the same as the WFPC2 image, but in shades of blue. A black circle (labeled “core light blocked”) blocks the glare of the quasar. Blue-colored filamentary material is visible near the black hole. The extragalactic jet is still visible.
4 min read

NASA’s Hubble Takes the Closest-Ever Look at a Quasar

Article6 days ago
Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA

James Webb Space Telescope

The image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes. The smallest of these are small, distant, and faint points of light. The largest of these appear larger, closer, brighter, and more fully resolved with 8-point diffraction spikes. The upper portion of the image is blueish, and has wispy translucent cloud-like streaks rising from the nebula below. The orangish cloudy formation in the bottom half varies in density and ranges from translucent to opaque. The stars vary in color, the majority of which have a blue or orange hue. The cloud-like structure of the nebula contains ridges, peaks, and valleys – an appearance very similar to a mountain range. Three long diffraction spikes from the top right edge of the image suggest the presence of a large star just out of view.

Perseverance Rover

Parker Solar Probe

Juno