Come fly by this space snowball! Nicknamed the Blue Snowball Nebula, Caldwell 22 is a planetary nebula that represents the stage in a Sun-like star’s life when it runs out of fuel. After billions of years of nuclear fusion, the star starts to shut down and its outer layers of gas puff away into space, creating a planetary nebula. Caldwell 22 calls the constellation Andromeda home and is well placed for observing in the autumn skies for those in the Northern hemisphere. It can be viewed with tele

Journey to Planetary Nebula NGC 2899 in Vela | Hubble FriendsofNASA.org: This video takes the viewer through space to reveal a new NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope image that captures the beauty of the moth-like planetary nebula NGC 2899. This object has a diagonal, bipolar, cylindrical outflow of gas. This is propelled by radiation and stellar winds from a nearly 22,000 degree Celsius white dwarf at the center. In fact, there may be two companion stars that are interacting and

Close-up: Planetary Nebula NGC 6072 in Scorpius | James Webb Space Telescope FriendsofNASA.org: The NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope’s view of planetary nebula NGC 6072 in the near-infrared shows a complex scene of multiple outflows expanding out at a variety of angles from a dying star at the center of the scene. These outflows push gas toward the equatorial plane, forming a disc. Astronomers suspect there is at least one other star interacting with th