Hubble Photographed Nebula M2-9
After 23 years, the telescope captured the 'Cosmic Butterfly' again.
N+1 reports that Hubble telescope made several photographs of nebula M2-9 or ‘Cosmic Butterfly”, as they call it on the website of the space observatory.
M2-9 is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Ophiuchus about 2,100 light years away from Earth.
The characteristic shape of the nebula is due to having not one, but two stars in its center. One of them is a dying star, and the second one is a white dwarf that orbits it, winding the ejected matter into characteristic wings.
(Cover photo credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA.)
