HUBBLE ATLAS
Hubble Heritage Project’s First Anniversary (HH 32, Hubble's Variable Nebula, NGC 2346, NGC 2440) — image from the Hubble Space Telescope

Nebulae

Hubble Heritage Project’s First Anniversary

October 7, 1999 · NASA · HH 32, Hubble's Variable Nebula, NGC 2346, NGC 2440

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To mark the first anniversary of the Hubble Heritage Project, we present four NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of nebulae surrounding stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. Two of these Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 images (Herbig Haro 32 and Hubble's Variable Nebula) show interstellar gas and dust around young stars at the beginning of their lives, and two more (NGC 2346 and NGC 2440) show gas ejected from old stars that are nearing the end of theirs. Remarkably, in spite of the completely different evolutionary stages, the nebulae have more striking features in common, including evidence of diametrically opposed gas ejections from both the young and old stars.