Planetary nebula
Videos
A planetary nebula is a type of emission nebula consisting of an expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives.
Some famous planetary nebulae
X-ray/optical composite image of the Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543)
Two cameras aboard Webb Telescope captured the latest image of this planetary nebula, cataloged as NGC 3132, and known informally as the Southern Ring Nebula. It is approximately 2,500 light-years away.
NGC 6326, a planetary nebula with glowing wisps of outpouring gas that are lit up by a binary central star
Stellar evolution
Videos
Stellar evolution is the process by which a star changes over the course of time. Depending on the mass of the star, its lifetime can range from a few million years for the most massive to trillions o
The violent youth of stars like the Sun
Artist's depiction of the life cycle of a Sun-like star, starting as a main-sequence star at lower left then expanding through the subgiant and giant phases, until its outer envelope is expelled to form a planetary nebula at upper right
The change in size with time of a Sun-like star