Representative Color:
Egg Nebula

This picture of infrared light from the Egg Nebula shows the last gasps of a dying star. Because infrared light is invisible to humans, we have used three different colors to represent the three wavelengths of infrared light.

Blue represents intermediate-wavelength infrared starlight reflected by dust particles around the dying star. Green represents longer-wavelength reflected starlight. Red represents infrared light from hydrogen molecules surrounding the star.

The red color indicates where a belt of molecular gas surrounds the star. The blue color is strongest above and below the belt, because that's where the most starlight is escaping.

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