A blue bubble shines in deep space in new Hubble photo
A blue-tinted cosmic bubble floats 30,000 light-years from Earth.
A newly-released photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a star, named WR 31a, circled by a Wolf–Rayet nebula -- the bubble-shaped blue structure made of gas and dust in the image.
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"Unfortunately, the lifecycle of a Wolf–Rayet star is only a few hundred thousand years — the blink of an eye in cosmic terms," Hubble said in a statement.
"Despite beginning life with a mass at least 20 times that of the sun, Wolf–Rayet stars typically lose half their mass in less than 100,000 years."
Scientists think that the nebula formed about 20,000 years ago, and it's speeding outward at about 136,700 miles per hour, Hubble said.
One day, WR 31a will likely explode as a supernova when it reaches the end of its stellar life.
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Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
