Halloween greetings from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) whose Very Large Telescope (VLT) has photographed the
Skull Nebula.
This ethereal remnant of a long dead star bears an uneasy resemblance to a skull floating through space. The eerie Skull Nebula is showcased in this new image in beautiful bloodshot colours. This planetary nebula is the first known to be associated with a pair of closely bound stars orbited by a third outer star.
Also known as NGC 246, the Skull Nebula lies about 1600 light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation of Cetus (The Whale). It formed when a Sun-like star expelled its outer layers in its old age, leaving behind its naked core — a white dwarf — one of two stars that can be seen at the very centre of NGC 246.
