Cosmic bubble gum⁣ 🫧 ⁣ This candy-colored confection is a planetary nebula nicknamed the Little Gem Nebula. Located 6,000 light-years away from us in the constellation of Sagittarius, this Little Gem has a rather interesting shape – and that’s thanks to the way it was made.⁣ ⁣ When stars like the Sun enter “retirement,” they shed their outer layers into space to create glowing clouds of gas called planetary nebulae. This ejection of mass is uneven, and planetary nebulae can have very complex shapes. The Little Gem took on the shape of a bright, enclosed central bubble with filament-like structures surrounded by a more diffuse bubble.⁣ ⁣ Scientists believe that the stellar wind from the central star propels the outward-flowing material, sculpting the nebula’s elongated shape. As this fast wind smashes through the slower-moving cloud, it creates particularly bright blowouts at the bubble’s outer layers.⁣ ⁣ Image description: The Little Gem Nebula looks like two blue and purple cloud...