The image above was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. You are viewing the Twin Jet Nebula where two stars are thought to be at its heart.
NASA provides more on this amazing image:
It is called the Twin Jet Nebula as well as answering to the slightly less poetic name of PN M2-9.
The M in this name refers to Rudolph Minkowski, a German-American
astronomer who discovered the nebula in 1947. The PN, meanwhile, refers
to the fact that M2-9 is a planetary nebula. The glowing and expanding
shells of gas clearly visible in this image represent the final stages
of life for an old star of low to intermediate mass. The star has not
only ejected its outer layers, but the exposed remnant core is now
illuminating these layers — resulting in a spectacular light show.
However, the Twin Jet Nebula is not just any planetary nebula, it is a
bipolar nebula.
Ordinary planetary nebulae have one star at their center, bipolar
nebulae have two, in a binary star system. Astronomers have found that
the two stars in this pair each have around the same mass as the sun,
ranging from 0.6 to 1.0 solar masses for the smaller star, and from 1.0
to 1.4 solar masses for its larger companion. The larger star is
approaching the end of its days and has already ejected its outer layers
of gas into space, whereas its partner is further evolved, and is a
small white dwarf.
This
Hubblecast video provides more on the nebula above and others.
