New Image Revealed: Hubble Space Telescope’s 34th Anniversary Showcases the Enigmatic ‘Little Dumbbell Nebula’
A new image of the Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, M76, NGC 650/651, the Cork Nebula, and the Barbell Nebula, was shared on April 23, 2024 to commemorate the 34th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s launch on April 24, 1990.
The image comes from the newest data stored at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, totaling 184 terabytes of information. Despite its name, the Little Dumbbell Nebula is not the remains of a planet. It is an expanding shell of gas and dust ejected from a red giant star that collapsed into a dense, hot white dwarf star. The white dwarf star is one of the hottest white dwarf remnants known, with a temperature of 216,000 degrees Fahrenheit (120,000 degrees Celsius).
Scientists believe that two lobes of glowing gas and dust on both sides of a central bar are caused by a second star that was consumed by the central white dwarf star. The rest of the colorful nebula is comprised of dust and gas ejected by the central star at incredibly high speeds of 2 million mph (3.2 million km/h). The glowing effect is due to ultraviolet radiation from
