The shape and appearance of the Exposed Cranium nebula come from a dying star at its center. In the end stages of a star's life cycle, it expels its outer layers. The "skull" portion of the nebula is the gas that was shed first, containing mostly hydrogen gas.
Image description: A shell of ghostly gas encapsulates a cloud of amber-colored gases that blow out in both directions from a central point. This makes the nebula look like a top-down view of two brain hemispheres inside a transparent skull. The scene is decorated with multicolor dots of light, representing distant galaxies and stars. The stars shown here have six points, characteristic of Webb images.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
by Nikky_cat
2 Comments
All that, from one dying star.
Spectacular photo!