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 and totals 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).
The new image from Hubble shows the Little Dumbbell Nebula as two lobes of glowing gas and dust on both sides of a central bar. Scientists believe that these rings were caused by a second star that the central white dwarf star consumed. The rest of this 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 of this nebula is due to ultraviolet radiation from the star with red colors denoting nitrogen and blue colors showing oxygen. The Little Dumbbell Nebula will remain visible for approximately 15,000 more years before its last gas dissipates into space making it a popular target for telescopes in summer nights in Northern Hemisphere.