NASA shares stunning picture of 'space butterfly'; netizens call it 'mesmerising'

Every w and n, NASA sweeps its fans off ir feet by sharing mesmerising photographs of cosmic entities ed by its many telescopes such as Hubble. ncy has did it again with a glittering im that resembles one of most delicate creatures on Earth- a butterfly. Captured by NASA's Spitzer Telescope, this butterfly is a nebula which is formed by stars that were born, lived and died in it. 

Netizens have reacted to post shared by NASA on Instagram. One user wrote, 'Beautiful', ar wrote, 'Ooooh that's awesome'. One Instagram user called it 'mesmerising' while ar called it 'So fascinating'.

More about butterfly nebula

Officially kwn as Westerhout 40 (W40), butterfly was discovered in 2014 under Massive Young Stellar Clusters Study in Infrared and X-rays survey. According to NASA, W40 is about 1,400 light-years from Sun, same distance as well-kwn Orion nebula. Anyone wishing to locate butterfly nebula in night sky should look 180 degrees from Orion nebula, NASA says.

What’s more, is that se two nebulae are two nearest regions in sky which are producing stars with masses over 10 times greater than Sun. Taking to Instagram, ncy explained that two “wings” visible in im are actually giant bubbles of hot, interstellar gas blowing from hottest, most massive stars inside nebula. Since W40 is also a graveyard of stars, it is also demonstrating how formation of stars results in destruction of very clouds that helped create m.

Explaining process of star formation, ncy wrote that it all starts with force of gravity pulling materials in gas and dust clouds to form dense clumps. se clumps n reach a 'critical density' which results in formation of stars at ir cores. "Ar cluster of stars, named Serpens South, can be seen to upper right of butterfly in this im. Although both Serpens South and cluster at heart of pictured nebula are young in astromical terms (less than a few million years old), Serpens South is younger of two", NASA wrote in captions. 

Im: Instagram/@NASA