X-ray Clues Reveal Destroyed Planet

In about 5 billion years, our Sun will run out of fuel and expand, possibly engulfing Earth. These end stages of a star’s life can be utterly beautiful – as is the case with this planetary nebula called the Helix Nebula. Astronomers study these objects by looking at all kinds of light. This images show X-rays from Chandra (magenta), optical light data from Hubble (orange, light blue), infrared data from the European Southern Observatory VISTA telescope (gold, dark blue), and ultraviolet data from GALEX (purple) of the Helix Nebula.

Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/Univ Mexico/S. Estrada-Dorado et al.; Ultraviolet: NASA/JPL; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI (M. Meixner)/NRAO (T.A. Rector); Infrared: ESO/VISTA/J. Emerson; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand;

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