Hubble image: This is what a dying star looks like

A report published in the CSMonitor said, “A new image taken recently by the Hubble Space Telescope captured a millennia-old blue “bubble” in the Carina constellation”.

Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a sparkling and handsome Wolf-Rayet star named WR 31a located at the center of a Wolf-Rayet nebula some 30,000 light-years away from us. These stars have a life of around 100,000 years, which is considered to be short time period in terms of cosmic standards. Researchers believe that the WR 31a star was born around 20,000 years ago and yet still continues to expand at an approximate speed of 136,700 miles per hour – hence the still very visible cloud.

“And WR 31a is no exception to this case”, says NASA in a statement.

Before they die, however, Wolf-Rayet stars expel an interstellar cloud of gases (mainly hydrogen and helium, as well as other gases). Both Wolf-Rayet nebulas and Wolf-Rayet stars like WR 31a have short lifespans.

Most of the brightest and massive stars in our galaxy Milky Way are Wolf-Rayet stars. The stars are generally massive commonly having masses that reach about 20 times that of our solar system’s sun. Created when speedy stellar winds interact with the outer layers of hydrogen ejected by WolfRayet stars, these nebulae are frequently ring-shaped or spherical.

The Hubble space telescope has delivered quite a few spectacular nebulae shots over the years.

The stunning-looking blue cloud surrounding the WR 31a star is a result – at least according to theorizing done by scientists that have been studying these stars for a lifetime – of fast-moving stellar winds. The Sun is 4.5 billion years old.

The star’s final days will eventually be spent going supernova as it releases stellar material that will populate the universe long after its death.