This Stunning Nebula Contains a Unique Scene – Two Stars Orbited by a Third – ScienceAlert

What you’re seeing in this remarkable image from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile is something that’s never been observed anywhere else: A planetary nebula made up of two closely bound stars orbited by a third outer star.
That third star wasn’t spotted until centuries after the discovery of the nebula itself, known as NGC 246, or sometimes called the Skull Nebula or the Pac-Man Nebula because of the shapes created by its stars and the gases swirling around them.
No other nebula seen by our…

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