This image, shared for the 31st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, reveals an immense feast of color and light from deep space. The image shows a nebula imaged in a wide range of light, from ultraviolet to infrared.

This beauty is called the Butterfly Nebula, or Caldwell 69 as it's officially known, and it really is named after its butterfly-like winged appearance. The reason for this interesting shape is that one or more dying stars have occasionally ejected their outer layers into space over the last few thousand years. In other words, as the stars neared death, they threw huge clouds of gas into space, resulting in this graceful but mighty shape.

Those giant masses of gas we call “wings” move so fast... they pierce space at speeds exceeding 966,000 kilometers per hour! Moreover, these gases are hotter than 20,000 degrees Celsius. So it's a cosmic storm, both in speed and temperature!

As Hubble's 35th birthday approaches, NASA is celebrating this special mission by sharing a photo to commemorate each year. A new series of anniversary photos is on the way, so expect more eye candy!

Image description:

Two lobes of glowing gas extend outward from a central point resembling a pair of butterfly wings. The lobes are white near the center and vibrant shades of green and blue on the outside, all glowing against a black space dotted with a few stars.

 

Image credits: NASA, ESA, Joel Kastner (RIT)