There’s nothing gentle or delicate about this butterfly. Despite its pleasant appearance, the Butterfly Nebula has a dying star at its centre that has a temperature of 250,000C.
The image, captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, shows the bright cavity of ionised gas that surrounds the central star. Situated 4000 light-years away in the Scorpion constellation, It should be fairly clear where it gets its name from. [NASA]