Ep. 16, Page 58

smbhax on April 11, 2012

The Egg Nebula, seen in this new Hubble photo, is a dying star gasping out thick clouds of material as it switches between burning its little remaining hydrogen and helium, with the hydrogen collapsing and dissipating from a vast shell that had swelled it briefly to a red giant; the clouds obscure the star itself, but we can see beams of light from it piercing through the clouds, possibly at spots burned through them by jets from the flailing core: