Fading Stingray Nebula

This video shows the drastic changes to the planetary nebula Hen 3-1357, nicknamed the Stingray nebula, over two decades as captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula is first seen as it was in 1996, with filaments and tendrils of gas glowing bright blue at its center. The wavy outer edges of gas also stand out against the dark background of the universe. The 1996 portrait then transitions to Hubble’s 2016 image, which shows a much dimmer nebula lacking in the pronounced wavy edges. Credit: NASA, ESA, B. Balick (University of Washington), M. Guerrero (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía), and G. Ramos-Larios (Universidad de Guadalajara), and J. DePasquale (STScI)