The Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, M76, NGC 650/651, the Cork Nebula, and the Barbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula located 3,400 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. This nebula is a popular target for telescopes in the summer in the Northern Hemisphere. In April 2024, on its 34th anniversary of its launch on April 24, 1990, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shared an image of this fascinating nebula.
Hubble’s newest image captures the Little Dumbbell Nebula as two lobes of glowing gas and dust on both sides of a central bar. Despite its name, a planetary nebula is not the remains of a planet but is an expanding shell of gas and dust ejected from a red giant star as it collapsed into a dense, hot white dwarf star. Scientists believe that the rings in the nebula were caused by a second star that the central white dwarf star has since consumed.
The white dwarf in the Little Dumbbell Nebula is one of the hottest white dwarf remnants known, with a temperature of 216,000 degrees Fahrenheit (120,000 degrees Celsius). It appears as a pinprick of light in the nebula’s center. The colorful nebula is due to the dust and gas ejected by
