Jupit
Three tall dark columns of dust, their edges glowing blue, against a field crowded with stars.

Deep sky

Past the planets the distances are counted in light-years, and the subject changes from worlds to stars: where they form, how they end, and what they leave behind. Every picture here is real telescope data. I drew none of it. I wish I had.

The “Pillars of Creation” in near-infrared light from the Hubble Space Telescope. Infrared passes through much of the dust, so stars behind and inside the pillars show; new stars sit in their tips. The caption gives no distance, so no light-age. Image: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

A wall of orange-brown gas and dust rising like mountains under a deep blue field of stars.

Born

Stars form inside cold clouds of gas and dust. This is the edge of one, 7,600 light-years away. The hot young stars above the frame are wearing the cloud away with their light and winds, and uncovering newer stars as they go. Look along the top edge: that is a nursery being blown open.

The “Cosmic Cliffs” at the edge of the star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula, about 7,600 light-years away, in infrared light from the James Webb Space Telescope. Released on 12 July 2022. This light left the nebula about 7,600 years before the picture was taken. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.

A star like the Sun ends quietly

It sheds its outer layers into space and leaves its hot core behind as a white dwarf, about the size of a planet. The Sun will do this too. Not soon.

Two views of the same oval nebula side by side: orange and blue shells on the left, red and blue on the right.
The Southern Ring Nebula from the James Webb Space Telescope, in near-infrared light (left) and mid-infrared light (right). A white dwarf, the remains of a star like the Sun, threw off these shells. Released on 12 July 2022. The caption gives no distance, so no light-age. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.
A ring of blue and violet gas like an eye, with a bright pink centre, on a field of coloured stars.
The Helix Nebula: the dusty outer layers of a dying star unravelling into space, lit by ultraviolet light from its hot core. Infrared from NASA’s Spitzer telescope and ultraviolet from GALEX, shown in colours the eye can see. The caption gives no distance, so no light-age. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
A ragged oval cloud: a web of orange and green filaments round a pale blue glow.

Exploded

A star much heavier than the Sun ends in a supernova. People saw this one in the year 1054, and wrote it down, which is the important part. The cloud is the star’s wreckage, still spreading, and at its centre the core survives as a neutron star.

The Crab Nebula, assembled from 24 Hubble exposures. It is the wreck of a star whose explosion Chinese astronomers recorded in 1054, and lies 6,500 light-years away in Taurus. This light left the nebula about 6,500 years before the picture was taken. Image: NASA/ESA/JPL/Arizona State University.

What a supernova leaves

A neutron star has about the mass of the Sun in a ball some 20 km across. Read that again. I had to. The one in the Crab turns about 30 times a second and sweeps a radio beam past Earth on every turn: a pulsar.

The middle of the Crab Nebula close up: red filaments round a blue haze with rippled rings near two bright stars.
The heart of the Crab Nebula from Hubble. The neutron star is the right-hand one of the two bright stars near the centre. It spins about 30 times a second, and the wisps round it move outward at half the speed of light. This light left the nebula about 6,500 years before the picture was taken. The distance is the one given for the whole Crab Nebula. Image: NASA and ESA.
A round shell of tangled red, yellow, green and blue filaments on a starry field.
Cassiopeia A, what is left of a star that exploded, 10,000 light-years away. False colour from three NASA telescopes: Spitzer (infrared), Hubble (visible) and Chandra (X-rays). This light left Cassiopeia A about 10,000 years before the picture was taken. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/CXC/SAO.

Where I got this