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Students Select Butterfly Nebula as Gemini South’s 25th‑Anniversary Image

Chilean students selected the Butterfly Nebula (NGC 6302) as the commemorative image for the 8.1‑m Gemini South telescope’s 25th anniversary. Captured as part of NOIRLab’s Legacy Imaging Program, the new portrait highlights hydrogen (red) and ionized oxygen (blue) in the nebula and reveals detailed structures carved by stellar winds. The nebula’s central white dwarf exceeds about 250,000 K and shaped the twin lobes seen today, while the image celebrates Gemini’s legacy and aims to inspire future astronomers.

06:43 AM, 12/01/2025Science
Students Select Butterfly Nebula as Gemini South’s 25th‑Anniversary Image

Chilean students have chosen the dramatic Butterfly Nebula (NGC 6302) as the commemorative image for the Gemini South telescope’s 25th anniversary. The new portrait was captured by the 8.1‑meter Gemini South telescope on Cerro Pachón, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, as part of the “Gemini First Light Anniversary Image Contest.”

The contest invited students from the observatory’s host communities in Chile and Hawai‘i to pick an object that honors Gemini South’s quarter‑century legacy; the telescope first achieved full operations in November 2000. The winning image was taken under NOIRLab’s ongoing Legacy Imaging Program.

About the Butterfly Nebula

Catalogued as NGC 6302 and often called the Butterfly or Bug Nebula, this striking bipolar planetary nebula lies roughly 2,500–3,800 light‑years away in the constellation Scorpius. Observed as early as 1826 and later recorded by Edward Emerson Barnard, the nebula’s wing‑like lobes were shaped by powerful stellar outflows from a dying star at its center.

The central star has evolved into an extremely hot white dwarf with a surface temperature exceeding about 250,000 K. Once a large red giant, the star shed its outer layers: slower material settled into a dense equatorial disk while faster, high‑velocity flows blasted out along the poles, carving the twin lobes that give the nebula its butterfly appearance.

What the Image Reveals

The new Gemini South portrait emphasizes glowing hydrogen in deep red and ionized oxygen in vivid blue, revealing intricate ridges, pillars and filaments formed where slower and much faster stellar winds collide. Intense ultraviolet radiation from the central white dwarf excites the expelled gas, causing the nebula to shine and releasing heavy elements that will enrich the surrounding interstellar medium and help seed future stars and planets.

This commemorative image both celebrates Gemini South’s scientific achievements over 25 years and aims to inspire the next generation of astronomers in its host communities.

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