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In the quarter-century that it's been eyeing the cosmos, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken some pretty spectacular photos. But few are as dramatic as a new image (above) of what the space agency termed "a dying star's final moments."
In more down-to-Earth terms, the image shows NGC 6565, a planetary nebula in the constellation Sagittarius. Planetary nebulas are glowing shells of gas given off by old stars at the end of their lives.
And the term "moments" is perhaps a bit of a stretch, as the star's death is unfolding over a period that will last tens of thousands of years. At the end of that span of time, the star's light will fall off dramatically and the nebula will fade from view.
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