Hubble Spotted A Star About To Die In A 'Rotten Egg Nebula'

NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a star that is trapped and about on the verge of death in the Calabash Nebula also known as the "Rotten Egg Nebula." This could be described as one of the dreadful ways to die.

The Calabash Nebula, is a spectacular example of the death of a low-mass star like our own Sun!
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— Hubble (@NASA_Hubble) February 3, 2017

The image was taken in January by the Hubble Space Telescope. This type of death of a star is rarely seen, as the evolution from the red giant to planetary nebula happens rapidly. The dead star ejects material in all directions at rapid-fire speed. As seen in the image, the yellow clouds move has a speed of about 1,000,000 kilometers per hour. In the next 1,000 years, the nebula will be converted into a shell of ionized gas referred to as a planetary nebula.

NASA stated that this is a stunning example of the death of a low-mass star like the Sun. It further stated that the astronomers rarely capture a star on the brink of death because it happens in the blink of an eye.

The Calabash Nebula with a technical name OH 231.8+04.2 is also known as the "Rotten Egg Nebula." This is because it has a lot of sulfur element. This element when combined with other elements could smell like a rotten egg, which its nickname is derived from.

This is a protoplanetary nebula (PPN) that is located about 5,000 lightyears (47 Em) away from Earth in the constellation Puppis. It is about 4.4 lightyears (13 Pm) long. The Calabash Nebula is nearly a member of the open cluster Messier 46, in which it has the same distance, proper motion and radial velocity.