The European Space Agency's Wide Field and Planetary Camera aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has returned an image of the formation of a planetary nebula, called Calabash. The 1.4 light years-long Calabash nebula is in a star cluster 5,000 light years away in the constellation of Puppis. It features a dying star expelling material at 500,000 km/h (310,560 mph) into a surrounding proto-planetary nebula, creating violent gas collisions which form supersonic shock fronts. The HST has also taken an image of a bubble of hot gas rising from glowing matter in the disc of galaxy NGC 3079, 50 million light years away. The bubble is 3,000 light years wide and rises 3,500 light years above the disc, probably blown by high-speed particles released during star formation.
Source: Flight International