CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A telescope in Chile has captured a stunning new picture of a grand and graceful cosmic ******* erfly.
The National Science Foundation’s NoirLab released the picture Wednesday.
Snapped last month by the Gemini South telescope, the aptly named ******* erfly Nebula is 2,500 to 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. A single light-year is 6 trillion miles.
At the heart of this bipolar nebula is a white dwarf star that cast aside its outer layers of gas long ago. The discarded gas forms the ******* erflylike wings billowing from the aging star, whose h