It’s nicknamed the Southern Owl Nebula and its an extraordinarily symmetrical and round planetary nebula. Using ESO’s VLT (Very Large Telescope) in Chile now it’s been possible to capture an extraordinary image of this dying star and what’s left around it. The result gives the impression of a sphere lit up like a ghost in the darkness of space.

The Southern Owl Nebula, also known as ESO 378-1, has a diameter of about four light-years away and is visible in the constellation Hydra. It’s a planetary nebula, which means a nebula that is composed of ionized gases that emit electromagnetic radiation.  Its nickname is connected to that of a counterpart in the constellation Ursa Major called Owl Nebula that has a similar shape.

Planetary nebulae can form when a star becomes a red giant and its outer layers get ejected. The ionization caused by the intense ultraviolet emitted from the star’s core make these layers of gas in turn emit electromagnetic radiation. The stars that originale these nebulae may be more massive than the Sun but not too much, otherwise they would explode in supernovae.

In astronomical terms, planetary nebulae are of short duration, a few tens of thousands of years. When one of them fades away, the star at its center still takes about one billion years before running out of fuel for good. In the end, it becomes a white dwarf that will cool slowly for billions of years while gas containing also heavy elements disperse in space enriching other clouds of dust and gases.

This study of the Southern Owl Nebula was made within the ESO Cosmic Gems programme, which aims to produce intriguing or visually attractive astronomical images with ESO telescopes for educational purposes or to reach the public. At the end of May 2015, another planetary nebula, the Medusa Nebula, was the subject of a similar study.

These images are also useful for scientific purposes, in the case of planetary nebulae showing better than ever what might happen in a few billion years when the Sun reaches the last stage of its life, becoming a red giant and then shrinking into a white dwarf creating a planetary nebula.

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