Hubble Telescope: Amazing images of stars going wild

Stars at the centre of two nebulas have been captured by the Hubble Telescope going "haywire".

NGC 6302, also known as the Butterfly Nebula to astronomers because of its wing-shaped form, is nearby to NGC 7027, nicknamed the Jewel Bug.

Both are some of the dustiest nebulas seen in space and they contain unusually large amounts of gas because they are so newly formed.

This makes them a really interesting pair for space experts to study.

A nebula is a cloud of dust and gas that floats around in space.

When they are blown about by the winds in our galaxy, as well as their own, they often have weird and wonderful shapes.

Some are created when a star dies, others allow stars to be born.

Experts at Nasa say that most stars live calm lives for up to billions of years. But, near the end of a star's life they go crazy - spinning and whirling, puffing off jets of hot gas, creating an incredible sight.

These nebulas are thought to be quite young. Astronomers believe that at the heart of each of them are (or perhaps were) two stars circling around one another, like a pair of 'figure skaters'.

Experts think that it is these stars that are responsible for the nebula's appearance.

Joel Kastner of Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, who led the nebula study, said: "These new multi-wavelength Hubble observations provide the most comprehensive view to date of both of these spectacular nebulas."

He added: "As I was downloading the resulting images, I felt like a kid in a candy store."

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on 24 April 1990.

It is one of Nasa's most important research tools.

Floating 350 miles above our heads, Hubble has beamed back images that are not only incredible to look at, but have completely changed our understanding of the universe.