Great Balls of Fire! Hubble Sees Bright Knots Ejected from Brilliant Star

The massive, hot central star is known as a Wolf-Rayet star. This extremely rare and short-lived class of super-hot star is going through a violent, transitional phase characterized by the fierce ejection of mass. The blobs may result from the furious stellar wind that does not flow smoothly into space but has instabilities which make it clumpy. This black and white image was made in the light of atomic hydrogen. The contrast has been increased to emphasize the fine detail in the nebula near the central star.