A giant cosmic necklace glows brightly in this Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image.
The object, aptly named the Necklace Nebula, is a recently discovered planetary nebula, the glowing remains of an ordinary, sun-like star.
The nebula consists of a bright ring, measuring 12trillion miles wide, dotted with dense, bright knots of gas that resemble diamonds in a necklace.
Newly discovered: The Necklace Nebula glows brightly in this composite image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope last month. The glow of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are shown by the colours blue, green and red respectively
It is located 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagitta.
A pair of stars orbiting close together produced the nebula, also called PN G054.2-03.4.
About 10,000 years ago, one of the ageing stars ballooned to the point where it engulfed its companion star.
The smaller star continued orbiting inside its larger companion, increasing the giant’s rotation rate.
The bloated companion star spun so fast that a large part of its gaseous envelope expanded into space.
Explorer: The Hubble Space Telescope as seen from space shuttle Columbia in 2002
Due to centrifugal force, most of the gas escaped along the star’s equator, producing a ring. The embedded bright knots are dense gas clumps in the ring.
The pair is so close, only a few million miles apart, that they appear as one bright dot in the centre.
The stars are furiously whirling around each other, completing an orbit in a little more than a day.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2025275/Necklace-Nebula-brightly-glows-dense-knots-blue-green-red-gases.html#ixzz1Uq4SqhpM
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