--- title: See Hubble's New Photo of a Beautiful Blue Space Bubble description: It's actually a giant space cloud of dust and gas. canonical: https://time.com/4239004/see-hubbles-new-photo-of-a-beautiful-blue-space-bubble/ author: Daniel White article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-26T19:11:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T15:25:15.319Z article:section: Science og:title: See Hubble's New Photo of a Beautiful Blue Space Bubble og:description: It's actually a giant space cloud of dust and gas. og:url: https://time.com/4239004/see-hubbles-new-photo-of-a-beautiful-blue-space-bubble/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4a18b59388f8547/69887f4c8e0601e50c464cbc/hubble_friday_02262016.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1280 og:image:height: 720 og:image:alt: Blue bubble in Carina og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See Hubble's New Photo of a Beautiful Blue Space Bubble twitter:description: It's actually a giant space cloud of dust and gas. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4a18b59388f8547/69887f4c8e0601e50c464cbc/hubble_friday_02262016.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # See Hubble's New Photo of a Beautiful Blue Space Bubble > Sponsored content. 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It reaches 40,000 subscribers with a 34.2% open rate and a 2.1% click rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Daniel White](https://time.com/author/daniel-white/) ## Daniel White Feb 26, 2016 7:11 PM UTC  Sparkling at the centre of this beautiful NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a Wolf–Rayet star known as WR 31a, located about 30 000 light-years away in the constellation of Carina (The Keel). The distinctive blue bubble appearing to encircle WR 31a, and its uncatalogued stellar sidekick, is a Wolf–Rayet nebula — an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other gases. Created when speedy stellar winds interact with the outer layers of hydrogen ejected by Wolf–Rayet stars, these nebulae are frequently ring-shaped or spherical. The bubble — estimated to have formed around 20 000 years ago — is expanding at a rate of around 220 000 kilometres per hour! Unfortunately, the lifecycle of a Wolf–Rayet star is only a few hundred thousand years — the blink of an eye in cosmic terms. Despite beginning life with a mass at least 20 times that of the Sun, Wolf–Rayet stars typically lose half their mass in less than 100 000 years. And WR 31a is no exception to this case. It will, therefore, eventually end its life as a spectacular supernova, and the stellar material expelled from its explosion will later nourish a new generation of stars and planets. Sparkling at the centre of this beautiful NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a Wolf–Rayet star known as WR 31a, located about 30 000 light-years away in the constellation of Carina (The Keel). The distinctive blue bubble appearing to encircle WR 31a, and its uncatalogued stellar sidekick, is a Wolf–Rayet nebula — an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other gases. Created when speedy stellar winds interact with the outer layers of hydrogen ejected by Wolf–Rayet stars, these nebulae are frequently ring-shaped or spherical. The bubble — estimated to have formed around 20 000 years ago — is expanding at a rate of around 220 000 kilometres per hour! Unfortunately, the lifecycle of a Wolf–Rayet star is only a few hundred thousand years — the blink of an eye in cosmic terms. Despite beginning life with a mass at least 20 times that of the Sun, Wolf–Rayet stars typically lose half their mass in less than 100 000 years. And WR 31a is no exception to this case. It will, therefore, eventually end its life as a spectacular supernova, and the stellar material expelled from its explosion will later nourish a new generation of stars and planets. ESA/Hubble/NASA by [Daniel White](https://time.com/author/daniel-white/) ## Daniel White Feb 26, 2016 7:11 PM UTC NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a star some 30,000 light years away surrounded by a mysterious blue bubble. That bubble is actually not a bubble at all, but a Wolf-Rayet nebula or a cloud of dust, hydrogen, helim and other gasses surrounding star WR 31a, [according to NASA](https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubbles-blue-bubble). The cloud most likely formed when space winds interacted with the outer layers of hydrogen ejected by the star. The space agency says the bubble is estimated to have formed around 20,000 years ago and is expanding at a rate of around 220,000 kilometers (136,700 miles) per hour. WR 31a, is part of the Carina constellation, known as the Keel. Wolf-Rayet stars like WR 31a don’t have a very long life span when compared to others stars, a few hundred thousand years—WR 31a will eventually end in a super nova, says NASA, ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4239004/see-hubbles-new-photo-of-a-beautiful-blue-space-bubble/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4239004/see-hubbles-new-photo-of-a-beautiful-blue-space-bubble/"},"headline":"See Hubble's New Photo of a Beautiful Blue Space Bubble","datePublished":"2016-02-26T19:11:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T15:25:15.319Z","description":"It's actually a giant space cloud of dust and gas","url":"https://time.com/4239004/see-hubbles-new-photo-of-a-beautiful-blue-space-bubble/","keywords":["Space","NASA","Hubble","photography"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4a18b59388f8547/69887f4c8e0601e50c464cbc/hubble_friday_02262016.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel White","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/daniel-white/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4a18b59388f8547/69887f4c8e0601e50c464cbc/hubble_friday_02262016.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Blue bubble in Carina","caption":"Blue bubble in Carina","creditText":"ESA/Hubble/NASA","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4239004/see-hubbles-new-photo-of-a-beautiful-blue-space-bubble/","name":"See Hubble's New Photo of a Beautiful Blue Space Bubble"}}]}] ```