New ideas about how stars die help solve a decades-old mystery
Simulations show even small stars can heat up fast enough to form colorful planetary nebulae
![seven planetary nebulae](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/050418_MT_planetary-nebulae_feat.jpg?fit=860%2C460&ssl=1)
GOING OUT IN STYLE New insights into the death throes of sunlike stars help solve a decades-old mystery about planetary nebulae, such as the seven captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in this composite image.
Clockwise from top left: D. Thompson/Large Binocular Telescope Observatory, C.R. O’Dell/Vanderbilt Univ., NASA, ESA; Hubble Heritage Team/STScl/AURA, NASA, ESA; Hubble SM4 ERO Team, NASA, ESA; Hubble SM4 ERO Team, NASA, ESA; Raghvendra Sahai and John Trauger /JPL, the WFPC2 Science Team, NASA; Andrew Fruchter, the ERO team/STScI, NASA, ESA; Hubble SM4 ERO Team, NASA, ESA