Seeing double? Hubble’s dying star PHOTO baffles NASA scientists

The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured an image which initially confounded scientists; what they thought was a snap of the remains of two dead stars turned out to be the last gasps of a single sun.

When they began analyzing the Hubble images showing the remnants of a dying star system in the Gemini constellation, scientists recorded the astral structure as two separate objects – NGC 2371 and NGC 2372 – based on the symmetrical nature that was left following the star’s death.

© ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Wade et al.

However, upon closer inspection, they realized that the two outer ‘lobes’ had been ejected by a single dying star (center of the image).

The entire star system was left with an ethereal glow as the dying star’s radiation interacted with and lit up the assorted galactic dust floating around the system.

Only the superheated core remains in the center, which will cool over a period of several thousand years to form a white dwarf, by which point the leftover gas and radioactive material will have dissipated further. 

This incredible photo serves as a haunting reminder of the fate which ultimately faces both our sun and, naturally, our entire solar system.

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