Stingray Nebula in 2016

This image shows the planetary nebula Hen 3-1357, nicknamed the Stingray nebula, captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in January 2016. This image of the Stingray nebula shows it has changed drastically in brightness and shape when compared to its first portrait by Hubble in 1996. When comparing the imaging, researchers discovered unprecedented changes in the light emitted by glowing nitrogen (shown in red), hydrogen (blue) and oxygen (green) being blasted off by the dying star at the center of the nebula.

About the colours

These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the WFPC2 and WFC3/UVIS instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope. Several filters were used to sample narrow wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F502N Green: F656N Red: F658N

About the data

The HST observations include those from programs 6039 (M. Bobrowsky) and 14126 (Z. Edwards)