NASA has share an image of a nebula capture by its Hubble Space Telescope that looks like a deep tunnel in space. This nebula is form by a dying star, name HD 44179, which has been shedding its outer layers for about 14,000 years.
The star is similar to the Sun, but it is dying and emanating gas and other material, which gives it a very distinctive shape.
The star is surround by an extraordinary structure known as the Red Rectangle a moniker ascribe to it because of its shape and apparent colour when seen from the Earth.
When capture by the Hubble telescope, the nebula looks like an “X” with space lines of glowing gas, separate by rIngs.
NASA share an image on Instagram.
The Red Rectangle nebula lies about 2,300 light-years away from Earth, towards the Monoceros constellation, which in Latin means “unicorn.” It lies in the northern sky.
As one of the central stars becomes further deplete of nuclear fuel, the Red Rectangle nebula will likely bloom into a planetary nebula, as per the NASA.
The Red Rectangle was first discover during a rocket flight in the early 1970s, during which astronomers were searching for strong sources of infrared radiation according to ESA.
And the name “Red Rectangle” was given by astronomers Martin Cohen and Mike Merrill in 1973 before Hubble revealed the complex X-shape of the nebula.
ESA had launch the Hubble Space Telescope jointly with NASA.
The Red Rectangle nebula’s light is strange and its composition is food for philosophy.
The X-shape suggests that something is preventing the star’s atmosphere from having a uniform expansion and thus it remains a hot topic of current research.
The Hubble telescope was launch into space in April 1990 aboard the shuttle Discovery.
From then, it has capture enigmatic images of deep space.
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