‘Butterfly nebula’: Hubble Telescope captures images of two stars, dust in

The universe reminds us once again why it’s deservedly awe-inspiring.

At first glance, the image appears to reveal a shimmering, magical butterfly, which according to CNET.com is actually know as the Twin Jet Nebula. In a picture released Wednesday by the European Space Agency, astronomers have revealed an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope that looks like something out of a sci-fi fantasy. The butterfly-like shape is likely caused by the motion between the two stars orbiting their common center of mass, according to NASA.

Planetary nebula have one star on the middle, however the twin jet nebula is characterised as a nebula as a result of it has two stars which assist give it the wings which have led to the nickname cosmic butterfly. The growing lobes are twin jets of gas streaming into space at more than 621,400 miles per hour.

As the star collapses, its orbit with the white dwarf companion whips the ejecting gas into a frenzy, blasting out two slowly corkscrewing jets that form the expanding gas into two wings (the blue patches at the center of the lobes).

“However, astronomers are still debating whether all bipolar nebulae are created by binary stars”. The growth continues to be careful, in accordance with NASA, and medical scientists assess the nebula was founded a comparatively small one-, 200 in the past. The nebula’s “wings” are expected to continually expand as the two stars spin about each other.

Researchers suggest the metamorphosis has only just begun.

The Twin Jet Nebula was named in part after its discoverer Rudolph Minkowski, a German-American astronomer who caught site of it in 1947. It lies some 2,100 light-years away from Earth’s solar system, found within the constellation Ophiuchus. Hubble has captured many butterfly nebulae before, and this one in particular was imaged previously in 1997, but Hubble captured PN M2-9 in June of 2015 using newer technology, and therefore capturing greater detail.