NASA / ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured this stunning image of planetary nebula Kohoutek 4-55, a dying star’s final display. Located 4,600 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus, this image was captured by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) and was then reprocessed with modern techniques to highlight its painting-like details.
What’s cool about Kohoutek 4-55 is its multi-layered look, which isn’t super common for planetary nebulae. It’s got a bright inner ring with an asymmetric layer, all enveloped by a faint red halo of ionized nitrogen. The colors in the picture—red for nitrogen, green for hydrogen, and blue for oxygen—show gas clouds lit up by ultraviolet light from the dying star’s hot center, which is shrinking into a white dwarf. This nebula is like a bright picture of a star’s final days, giving us a peek at what might happen to stars like our Sun way off in billions of years.
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The image is also special because it’s one of the last bits of data from WFPC2, wrapping up its 16 years of amazing Hubble photos. Reprocessing it in 2025 gives this cosmic farewell a fresh shine, providing a nice nod to both the nebula’s beauty and the camera’s legacy.
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