NASA / ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured this glowing image of the Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76 (M76), located 3,400 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. This planetary nebula is basically an expanding shell of glowing gases that were ejected from a dying red giant star.
Eventually, M76 will collapse into an ultra-dense, hot white dwarf. For now, we can see that the nebula is composed of a ring, observed edge-on as the central bar structure, with two lobes on either opening of the ring. A ring of gas and dust was ejected before the star burned out, and the former was probably sculpted by the effects of the star that once had a binary companion star. The shedded material created a thick disc of dust and gas along the plane of the companion’s orbit.
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Like an inflating balloon, the lobes are expanding into space from a dying star seen as a white dot in the centre. Blistering ultraviolet radiation from the super-hot star is causing the gases to glow. The red color is from nitrogen, and blue is from oxygen,” said the ESA.
