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Nebula

A nebula is a giant cloud of gas (mostly hydrogen and helium) and cosmic dust situated between stars in the interstellar medium. Nebulae serve as sites of stellar birth and death—including emission nebulae that glow from ionized gas, reflection nebulae that scatter starlight, and dark nebulae that obscure background stars.

Source: science.nasa.gov

APODs including "Nebula"

The Ghost of Jupiter's Halo

11/07/2019

The Ghost of Jupiter's Halo
Image Credit: CHART32 Team / NASA APOD

Close-up images of NGC 3242 show the cast off shroud of a dying, sun-like star fancifully known as The Ghost of Jupiter nebula. But this deep and wide telescopic view also finds the seldom seen outer halo of the beautiful planetary nebula at the upper left, toward Milky Way stars and background galaxies in the serpentine constellation Hydra. Intense and otherwise invisible ultraviolet radiation from the nebula's central white dwarf star powers its illusive glow in visible light. In fact, planets of NGC 3242's evolved white dwarf star may have contributed to the nebula's symmetric features and shape. Activity beginning in the star's red giant phase, long before it produced a planetary nebula, is likely the cause of the fainter more extensive halo. About a light-year across NGC 3242 is some 4,500 light-years away. The tenuous clouds of glowing material at the right could well be interstellar gas, by chance close enough to the NGC 3242's white dwarf to be energized by its ultraviolet radiation.