The Rotten Egg Nebula (OH 231.8 + 04.2) is the brightest example of the death of a little massive star resembling our Sun. Photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. This is a star undergoing a rapid transformation process from a red giant to a planetary nebula that inflates its outer dust and gas layers into space. Recently released material has spread in opposite directions with great speed. This gas is shown in yellow, moving about a million kilometers per hour. Astronomers rarely manage to catch a star in this evolutionary phase, because the process itself takes place at lightning speed (by astronomical standards). Over the next thousand years, the object should turn into a full-fledged planetary nebula.
The name was invented because of the high concentration of sulfur, the smell of which, in combination with other elements, resembles a rotten egg. True, to smell it, fortunately, will not work, since it is located more than 5000 light years from us in the constellation Korma.
