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Astronomy Picture of the Day - The Egg Nebula from the Hubble Telescope
NASA ^ | 25 Feb, 2026 | Image Credit & Copyright: ESA/Hubble & NASA, B. Balick (U. Washington)

Posted on 02/25/2026 11:22:02 AM PST by MtnClimber

Explanation: Ever wonder what it would look like to crack open the Sun? The Egg Nebula, a dying Sun-like star, can unscramble this question. Pictured is a combination of several visible and infrared images of the nebula (also known as RAFGL 2688 or CRL 2688) taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The star has shed its outer layers, and a bright, hot core (or "yolk") now illuminates the milky "egg white" shells of gas and dust surrounding the center. The central lobes and rings are structures of gas and dust recently ejected into space, with the dust being dense enough to block our view of the stellar core. Light beams emanate from that blocked core, escaping through holes carved in the older ejected material by newer, faster jets expelled from the star’s poles. Astronomers are still trying to figure out what causes the disks, lobes, and jets during this short (only a few thousand years!) phase of the star’s evolution, making this an egg-cellent image to study!


TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

1 posted on 02/25/2026 11:22:02 AM PST by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

2 posted on 02/25/2026 11:22:20 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: 21stCenturion; 21twelve; 4everontheRight; A Navy Vet; A_perfect_lady; abb; AFB-XYZ; AFPhys; ...
Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

3 posted on 02/25/2026 11:22:59 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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About 3,000 light years away from Earth.


4 posted on 02/25/2026 11:25:09 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

Wow.


5 posted on 02/25/2026 11:33:41 AM PST by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: MtnClimber
Those eggs look underdone in the middle.
I'm holding out for the bacon nebula.
Dang cat's on my bacon.


6 posted on 02/25/2026 1:05:18 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: MtnClimber

7 posted on 02/25/2026 1:54:59 PM PST by Deaf and Discerning
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To: MtnClimber

Looks like a dragonfly…


8 posted on 02/25/2026 4:49:00 PM PST by telescope115 (Ad Astra, Ad Deum…)
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To: MtnClimber

Very cool!


9 posted on 02/25/2026 4:54:32 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
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To: MtnClimber

Looks like a depiction of the chaos inside the minds of liberals.


10 posted on 02/25/2026 5:28:55 PM PST by simpson96
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