There’s nothing gentle or delicate about this butterfly. Despite its pleasant appearance, the Butterfly Nebula has a dying star at its center that has a temperature of 250,000 degrees C.
The image, captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, shows the bright cavity of ionized gas that surrounds the central star. Situated 4,000 light-years away in the Scorpion constellation, It should be fairly clear where it gets its name from. [NASA]
