#yolk

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐠𝐠 𝐍𝐞𝐛𝐮𝐥𝐚 (𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐮𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐞)

Ever wonder what it would look like to crack open the Sun? The Egg Nebula, a dying Sun-like star, can unscramble this question. Pictured is a combination of several visible and infrared images of the nebula (also known as RAFGL 2688 or CRL 2688) taken with the Hubble Space Telescope.

The star has shed its outer layers, and a bright, hot core (or "yolk") now illuminates the milky "egg white" shells of gas and dust surrounding the center. The central lobes and rings are structures of gas and dust recently ejected into space, with the dust being dense enough to block our view of the stellar core.

Light beams emanate from that blocked core, escaping through holes carved in the older ejected material by newer, faster jets expelled from the star’s poles.

Astronomers are still trying to figure out what causes the disks, lobes, and jets during this short (only a few thousand years!) phase of the star’s evolution, making this an 'egg-cellent' image to study!

Akemi - They - Aquamarine Fukushima

Japanese marten (Summer Coat) [Martes melampus]

Aquamarine Fukushima, September 2025

egg and yolk :)

Cluck's Cuckoo Nest stimboard!

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