Chandra Release - May 10, 2006

Visual Description: Mz 3

The image is a multipanel that includes four newly-formed planetary nebulas in the Milky Way: Mz 3, BD+30-3639, Hen 3-1475, and NGC 7027. The dominant colors in the image are blue, and gold with small splashes of green and red. The structure in the top image, Mz3, appears to be shaped like a butterfly or a pair of elongated wings, with a bright spot in the center.  BD+30-3639 is spherical in shape.  Hen 3-1475 looks like a very long, thin, drawn out S shape. NGC 7027 is like a moth tilted up to the right. This 4-panel of composite images show X-ray light from Chandra in blue, optical and infrared light from Hubble in green and red.  The nebulas show a scene of the unfolding drama of the last stages of the evolution of sun-like stars. Planetary nebulas - so called because some of them resemble a planet when viewed through a small telescope - are produced in the late stages of moderate-mass stars' life. Over a period of a few hundred thousand years, much of a star's mass is expelled at a relatively slow speed. This mass loss creates a more or less spherical cloud around the star and eventually uncovers the star's blazing hot core. Later, shock waves generated by the collision of high-speed gas from the hot core with the previously ejected cloud create the multimillion degree bubbles observed by Chandra.