Nature's Space Gardens

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For sheer beauty, Hubble's images of planetary nebulae are unrivaled. The spectrum of colors, shapes and sizes of these glowing gas clouds is the celestial counterpart to the most intricate and well-tended flower gardens on Earth.

Astronomers cannot explain the variety and particularities of planetary nebulae. The objects, formed as dying stars shed their layers of gas, were so named because to ground-based observers they appeared round and shaped rather like a planet. Hubble has shattered that illusion, but raised new questions in the process.

With time, the matter cast away by stars in death may be recycled into new stars. Hubble's sharp eye has peered into celestial wombs, where infant stars wrapped in cosmic placentas are amassing energy and matter to ignite their own nuclear cores.