NGC 6302 — The Stained Glass Butterfly

NGC 6302 — The Stained Glass Butterfly

NGC 6302, better known as the Butterfly Nebula, is a planetary nebula located roughly 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. Despite the gentle name, this object is anything but delicate. At its center is an extremely hot dying star, throwing off layers of gas into a dramatic bipolar shape that stretches outward like wings.

This version was processed in a modified SHO palette using H-alpha, sulfur-II, and oxygen-III data. The result brought out a stained-glass character in the nebula: blue-green translucent wings, brighter cyan structure near the core, and subtle warmer tones threaded through the outer gas.

Planetary nebulae are the final artwork of Sun-like stars — brief, intricate, and violent in origin. NGC 6302 looks almost fragile here, but those wings are the remains of a star reshaping its surroundings as it fades from one life into the next.