The pearl necklace in space has a tragic history

This Necklace Nebula looks peaceful, but looks can be deceiving.

The special nebula was created ten thousand years ago by two stars that orbit closely around each other. One of the two stars swelled up and ended up swallowing the smaller star. Now you might be thinking: end of story for the little star? Well, that’s the beauty: not so!

The smaller star continued to spin inside its larger brother, increasing the larger star’s rotational speed. So fast that the big star even lost gas. Centrifugal force caused most of the gas to escape along the star’s equator, creating a ring 12 trillion miles in size. The pearls – or the clear knots of the necklace – are dense lumps of gas.

The two stars still orbit closely around each other today. The distance between the two stars is only a few million kilometers and the orbital period is more than one day. For this reason, even the Hubble telescope fails to photograph the two stars separately. Therefore, you see not two, but one bright point in the center of this Necklace Nebula.