{"id":319445,"date":"2025-11-28T22:44:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T22:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/319445\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T22:44:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T22:44:14","slug":"telescope-in-chile-captures-stunning-cosmic-butterfly-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/319445\/","title":{"rendered":"Telescope in Chile captures stunning cosmic butterfly picture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 A telescope in Chile has captured a stunning new picture of a grand and graceful cosmic butterfly.<\/p>\n<p>The National Science Foundation\u2019s NoirLab released the picture on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Snapped last month by the Gemini South telescope, the aptly named Butterfly Nebula is 2,500 to 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. A single light-year is 6 trillion miles.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37788149\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/6302-billowing-planetary-nebula-resembles-116241410.jpg\" alt=\"NGC 6302, a colorful butterfly-shaped planetary nebula, set against a dark starry sky.\" class=\"wp-image-37788149\"  \/>A telescope in Chile has captured a stunning new picture of a grand and graceful cosmic butterfly. AP<\/p>\n<p>At the heart of this bipolar nebula is a white dwarf star that cast aside its outer layers of gas long ago. <\/p>\n<p>The discarded gas forms the butterfly-like wings billowing from the aging star, whose heat causes the gas to glow.<\/p>\n<p>Schoolchildren in Chile chose this astronomical target to celebrate 25 years of operation by the International Gemini Observatory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 A telescope in Chile has captured a stunning new picture of a grand&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[13293,12654,79,193,965],"class_list":["post-319445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-chile","tag-hubble-space-telescope","tag-science","tag-space","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}