The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a spectacular new image of a planetary nebula known as NGC 6153.
This image shows the planetary nebula NGC 6153. Its central star is faint and of unknown spectral type. Image credit: ESA / Hubble / NASA / Matej Novak.
NGC 6153, also known as ESO 331-6 or HD 148687, is located in the southern constellation of Scorpius, about 4,830 light-years away.
The nebula is elliptical in shape and has an extremely rich network of loops and filaments, shown clearly in this new image from Hubble.
However, this is not what makes NGC 6153 so interesting for scientists.
Measurements show that this object contains large amounts of neon, argon, oxygen, carbon and chlorine – up to 3 times more than can be found in our Solar System.
It also contains around 5 times more nitrogen than the Sun.
Although it may be that the star developed higher levels of these elements as it grew and evolved, it is more likely that the star originally formed from a cloud of material that already contained lots more of these elements.
Amateur astronomer Matej Novak submitted a version of this image to the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition.
