NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope Spots 3 Planetary Nebulae

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope captured images of three planetary nebulae, which emit ionized gases, plasma and dust from dying stars. They end their lives in supernova explosions. Stars usually undergo supernova or stellar explosions after they attain a weight of more than 8 stellar masses.

"Some might call the images haunting," said Joseph Hora of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass., principal investigator of the Spitzer observing program. "We look to the pictures for a sense of the history of the stars' mass loss, and to learn how they evolved over time."

Nebula means cloud in Latin. They are formed after stellar explosions takes place and the remaining bits and pieces join together with the existing gravitational attraction. As stars reach the mass of our Sun, they die eventually after they lose all the fuel in the core after billions of years of their origin. These Sun-like stars transform into stars called 'red giants' after their fuel drains. Their unique shapes turn visible after the U.V. light emitted from the heart of a dying star fuels the ejected layers and illuminates the billowy material.

The nebulae spotted by the Spitzer telescope are:

Exposed Cranium nebula, also called PMR 1, has a brain-like orb, and is located around 5,000 light-years away in the Vela constellation. This constellation is located in the south of the sky and hosts a very bright and hot star called Gamma Velorum, which is collapsing speedily. This nebula is composed majorly of ionized gas red coloured from the inside, portraying a mushy appearance. Its outer layer is composed of hydrogen molecules.  

Ghost of Jupiter Nebula is the second Nebula, formally named NGC 3242, is situated 1,400 light years far from us in the constellation Hydra, a large modern constellation. This nebula is red colored on the outside. This phenomenon points towards the death of the star emitting its materials out periodically.

The third nebula spotted by the telescope is Little Dumbbell Nebula, also called, NGC 650. This planetary nebula is located in the Perseus constellation around 2,500 light-years away from Earth. The Perseus constellation is located in the northern sky and is named after a Greek mythological hero. This nebula experiences fast winds blowing above and below it. The nebula is colored green and red, where the green portion is hotter than the red region.

These planetary nebulae were wrongly named by William Herschel in 1785, because they resembled  planets.