Vikas Mehta
Credit : NASA
A giant cosmic necklace glows brightly in this Hubble Space Telescope image.
This nebula, officially known as Hen 2-104, is located several thousand light-years from Earth in the southern hemisphere constellation of Centaurus.
The composite picture is a seamless blend of ultra-sharp Hubble Space Telescope images combined with the wide view of the Mosaic Camera.
Resembling a nightmarish beast rearing its head from a crimson sea, this monstrous object is actually an innocuous pillar of gas and dust.
This celestial object looks like a delicate butterfly. But it is far from serene.
This colorful Hubble image gives us a window seat to the universe's extraordinary tapestry of stellar birth and destruction.