22the butterfly Nebula

Every now and again, the Hubble Space Telescope needs a service. This is a situation similar to updating the software on your computer or smartphone.

This update was a more complicated process, though, as it required a team of NASA astronauts spending over 12 days in space to carry out the task.

Servicing Mission 4 was a success, and the newly fitted WFC3 began its duties of probing the universe. To celebrate the cameras arrival, Hubble took this snapshot of the Butterfly Nebula, also known as NGC 6302.

The explosive nebula falls under the category of planetary nebulae, as this particular deep-sky object is the result of a final eruption of a star. The eruption that caused NGC 6302 cast the outer layers away at a speed of 950,000 kilometres per hour (590,300 miles per hour), which is over 765-times the speed of sound.

Even though the dark dust trail has obstructed our view of the central star, scientists were still able to estimate the surface temperature of the star as being over 220,000 degrees Celsius (396,032 degrees Fahrenheit). This scorching temperature makes it one of the hottest known stars in our galaxy – it’s almost 40-times the temperature of our Sun’s surface. This dust trail also constrains the movement of the escaping ionised gas, which is what brings rise to bipolar outflow motion within the structure.