Image 5-23
Butterfly Nebula

This image of planetary nebula NGC 6302 was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Due to its unique shape, thi snebula is also called the Butterfly Nebula and the Bug Nebula. It is a is a bipolar planetary nebula located in the constellation Scorpius. The structure of the nebula is among the most complex ever observed in planetary nebulae. The spectrum of NGC 6302 shows that its central star is one of the hottest stars in the galaxy, with a surface temperature in excess of 200,000 Kelvin. This implies that the star from which the nebula formed wat at least five times larger than the Sun.