How long does nebula last

Astronomers have captured one such planetary nebula in this stunning image. This brightly-lit, stellar exhalation will last only 10, years, a brief moment in astronomical terms. As the last breath expands and travels away from the star that exhaled it, it will become diffuse and will no longer be visible. All that will be left is the tiny and intensely hot remnant of the star that spawned it. That programme produces images of objects that are interesting, visually stunning, or otherwise intriguing, as a part of their public outreach efforts.

Before this star took its final breath, it was a red giant , a huge type of star that has exhausted the hydrogen in its core. Eventually, fusion moved to the vast shell of expanding gas that surrounds the core. The star expanded, and as the outer shell cooled, it dimmed to a reddish-orange glow. This star spent about a billion years as a red giant, and once that phase of its life ended, it shed its outer layers in a last exhalation, which astronomers call a stellar wind.

Those tiny dots are newly-formed stars! Nebulae are made of dust and gases—mostly hydrogen and helium. The dust and gases in a nebula are very spread out, but gravity can slowly begin to pull together clumps of dust and gas.

As these clumps get bigger and bigger, their gravity gets stronger and stronger. Eventually, the clump of dust and gas gets so big that it collapses from its own gravity. The collapse causes the material at the center of the cloud to heat up-and this hot core is the beginning of a star. Nebulae exist in the space between the stars—also known as interstellar space. The closest known nebula to Earth is called the Helix Nebula.

One day, this core becomes hot enough to ignite fusion and a star is born. Not all of the material in the collapsing cloud ends up as part of a star — the remaining dust can become planets, asteroids or comets … or it may remain as dust.

Scientists running three-dimensional computer models of star formation predict that the spinning clouds of collapsing gas and dust may break up into two or three distinct blobs. This would explain why the majority the stars in the Milky Way are paired or in groups of multiple stars.

Astrophysicists have used detailed observations and computer simulations to understand the lifecycles of stars, their chemistry, the nuclear processes within them and the nature of the gas and dust — called the interstellar medium or ISM — out of which stars form. Hubble probes the intricate complexity of these environments, and it has unveiled stars and planetary systems in the making. The chemical makeup of stars, revealed through spectroscopy , depends on the material in which they originate.

In the early universe, stars were formed from matter that lacked most elements except for hydrogen and helium. The other chemical elements have been and still are being created in the interior of stars through nuclear fusion processes.

That new material is eventually recycled into subsequent generations of stars and planets. Most stars form in multiple star systems, though this formation process is not completely understood. The groupings of stars that form together can vary from a few stars to many hundreds or thousands.

The stars in each cluster have a variety of masses. The most massive stars are rare, while the least massive stars are the most numerous. Hubble has probed star clusters of all sizes and uses spectroscopy to determine the detailed chemistry in star cluster members.

By taking precise observations of star cluster members, scientists using Hubble can determine their luminosities intrinsic brightnesses and temperatures.

This helps refine our understanding of star formation, stellar evolution and the physics of the theoretical models used to explain these phenomena. The most massive star clusters, containing tens and hundreds of thousands of stars, were mostly formed early on in the universe, about 13 billion years ago.

These massive clusters, called globular clusters, persist today although the stars in them have evolved over time. Cluster characteristics are tracers of the earliest times of cosmic star formation. Hubble observations have revealed subtle differences in globular clusters, their chemistry and, in some cases, evidence that these clusters actually have multiple generations of stars within them.

When their nuclear fuel is exhausted, the most massive stars explode in a spectacular fashion, called a supernova , leaving behind neutron stars, black holes or nothing at all. The last time astronomers observed a supernova in our galaxy was in the s. Three years later, Hubble began to monitor the explosion — called Supernova A — from the first-ever ringside seat for a supernova.

Hubble has observed the nebula remnant of Supernova A repeatedly, witnessing rings and knots of gas brightening around the exploded star.