Picture of the Day - A Dying Star

NGC 2440 is a planetary nebula ejected by a dying star, but it has a much more chaotic structure than NGC 2346. The central star of NGC2440 is one of the hottest known, with a surface temperature near 200,000 degrees Celsius.



The complex structure of the surrounding nebula suggests to some astronomers that there have been periodic oppositely directed outflows from the central star, somewhat similar to that in NGC2346, but in the case of NGC 2440 these outflows have been episodic, and in d [...]

Full story at http://spacefellowship.com/news/art20999/picture-of-the-day-a-dying-star.html