The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a beautiful image of a cosmic cloud known as the Little Dumbbell Nebula, to mark 34 years since the orbiting observatory's launch.
The Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, is located 3,400 lightyears away from Earth and can be found in the circumpolar constellation Perseus.
It's not to be confused with the Dumbbell Nebula, another famous cosmic cloud!
Known as a planetary nebula, the Little Dumbbell is a glowing cosmic cloud formed by the expanding shell of gas emanating from a dying star.
A planetary nebula doesn't have anything to do with planets, but the name comes from the fact that they often appear as round, puffed out shapes resembling a planetary body.
Planetary nebulae form when a red giant star runs out of fuel and collapses under its own gravity, to form a dense stellar remnant known as a white dwarf.
Exploring the Little Dumbbell Nebula
The central bar structure seen in the Little Dumbbell is actually a ring formation, but is seen edge-on from the perspective of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Two lobes can be seen on either side of the ring structure.
As the dying star began to burn out, it ejected this ring of gas and dust, possibly sculpted by the effect of the star's having once been a binary star.
The ejected material has formed a thick disc of dust and gas along the plane of the companion’s orbit.
The primary star, meanwhile, is collapsing to form a white dwarf that's a scorching 120,000°C (216,000°F), 24 times the surface temperature of the Sun.
This makes it one of the hottest known stellar remnants, and the star can be spotted as a bright point at the centre of the nebula.
The two lobes seen in the image are formed from material that's being ejected into space at 2 million miles per hour.
This colossal speed is a result of them being propelled by the outflow of stellar material from the dying star.
Although all is currently chaotic in the region of the Little Dumbbell Nebula and its dying star, as this Hubble Space Telescope image shows, within 15,000 years it will be gone: the blink of an eye in cosmic terms.
