By MARCIA DUNN, CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP):- A dying star has never looked so lovely.
The Gemini North Telescope atop Hawaii’s tallest peak, Mauna Kea, captured the star in its last gasps. The image was released Thursday by the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, which operates the telescope.
It’s actually a binary star system 1,500 light-years away, nicknamed the Crystal Ball Nebula because of the milky white, spherical cloud around it. A light-year is almost 6 trillion miles.
This cloud of gas forms when a star sheds its outer layers near the end of its life. The exposed stellar core heats the cloud to tens of thousands of degrees, giving it an ethereal glow.
Scientists believe one of the planetary nebula’s two orbiting stars — once bigger than our sun — gave up the ghost.
Gemini North last year observed the nebula — formally known as NGC 1514 — and the image was completed in color last week.