NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a rare sight – the death of a low-mass star – in this image of the Calabash Nebula released on February 3, 2017.
Here we can see the star undergoing a rapid transformation from a red giant to a planetary nebula, during which it blows its outer layers of gas and dust into the surrounding space. Newly ejected material is spewed out in opposite directions at immense speed – the gas shown in yellow is traveling at nearly a million kilometers per hour.
Astronomers rarely capture a star in this phase of its evolution, because it happens in the blink of an eye – in astronomical terms. Over the next thousand years, the nebula is expected to evolve into a full-fledged planetary nebula.
