The Hubble Space Telescope photographed a sun-like star that ended its life in a symmetrical burst of two balls of matter
Avi Blizovsky
An image of a planetary nebula published by the Hubble Space Telescope Scientific Institute and which has been nicknamed the "Ant Nebula" challenges the existing theories about the death of stars like our Sun. The photograph of the Hubble reveals 10 times more detail than a photograph from the ground of the same object. Thus the mourner was able to reveal that the body of the "ant" consists of two lobes emitted from a dead star.
Observing sun-like stars at the time of their death, astronomers are beginning to discover that the fate of our sun will be much more interesting, complex and imaginative than what they thought until now. Of particular interest to the scientists is the fact that the patterns of the explosions are symmetrical, unlike the chaotic patterns expected from a normal explosion and not from a giant explosion such as a super nova that characterizes much heavier stars. The scientists are using Hubble to look for possible explanations for the patterns, including the influence of the gravitational pull of a companion star and the rotation of the dead star itself. No planetary nebula observed so far by Hubble resembles this one, whose scientific name is Mz3.
