Public
- Public
- Network
- Groups
- Featured
- Popular
- People

This image, which combines infrared data from the James Webb Space Telescope with submillimetre observations from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), shows the doughnut-shaped torus and interconnected bubbles of dusty gas that surround the Butterfly Nebula’s central star. The torus is oriented vertically and nearly edge-on from our perspective, and it intersects with bubbles of gas enclosing the star. The bubbles appear bright red in this image, illuminated by the light from helium and neon gas. Outside the bubbles, jets traced by emission from ionised iron shoot off in opposite directions. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

Download link

This image, which combines infrared data from the James Webb Space Telescope with submillimetre observations from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), shows the doughnut-shaped torus and interconnected bubbles of dusty gas that surround the Butterfly Nebula’s central star. The torus is oriented vertically and nearly edge-on from our perspective, and it intersects with bubbles of gas enclosing the star. The bubbles appear bright red in this image, illuminated by the light from helium and neon gas. Outside the bubbles, jets traced by emission from ionised iron shoot off in opposite directions. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/187/330/538/484/564/original/1c69cbd628bf36e5.jpeg

Notices where this attachment appears

Embed this notice
Corey S Powell (coreyspowell@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 12-Sep-2025 05:56:13 JST Corey S Powell

In another part of the world, meanwhile, people doggedly pursue beauty, knowledge & a deeper connection to the universe: A short thread.
A new study of the Butterfly Nebula shows it blowing out mineral crystals & carbon molecules--the raw material for future Earthlike planets.
https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/cosmic-butterfly-reveals-clues-earths-creation #space #science #nature

In conversation about 5 months ago from mastodon.social permalink