Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection
Title:
NGC 2440: Cocoon of a New White Dwarf
Explanation:
Like a butterfly, a white dwarf star begins its life by casting off a cocoon that enclosed its former self. In this analogy, however, the Sun would be a caterpillar and the ejected shell of gas would become the prettiest of all! In the above cocoon [ http://hubblesite.o…], the planetary nebula designated NGC 2440, contains one of the hottest white dwarf stars known. The white dwarf [ http://imagine.gsfc…] can be seen as the bright dot near the photo's center. Our Sun will eventually become a "white dwarf butterfly", but not for another 5 billion years. The above false color image [ http://heritage.sts…] was post-processed by Forrest Hamilton [ http://heritage.sts…].
Credit and Copyright:
H. Bond (STScI [ http://www.stsci.ed…]), R. Ciardullo (PSU [ http://www.astro.ps…]), WFPC2 [ http://www.stsci.ed…], HST [ http://www.stsci.ed…], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/]
facet_where:
Hamilton
facet_where:
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
facet_where:
Washington, D.C.
facet_what:
Sun
facet_what:
dwarf
facet_what:
white dwarf
facet_what:
Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
facet_what:
New General Catalogue (NGC)
original url:
UID:
SPD-APOD-ap060507

NGC 2440: Cocoon of a New White Dwarf