When a dying Sun-like star exhales its final breath, it’s a doozy. The star blows its outer layers of gas into space. That surrounds the star’s dying core with a colorful bubble. The bubble can last for tens of thousands of years before it fades away.

One of those bubbles is on the edge of Gemini, which is well up in the east at nightfall.

Known as the Medusa Nebula, the bubble is about 1500 light-years away, and it spans more than four light-years. It’s named for one of the Gorgons of Greek mythology. That’s because some of its tendrils of gas have reminded skywatchers of the snakes on Medusa’s head.

Those tendrils have been expanding into space for thousands of years. They began their journey when their star could no longer produce nuclear reactions in its core. Gravity squeezed the dying core tighter, making it smaller and hotter. The radiation of the hotter core pushed away the layers of gas around the core. Today, they’re moving outward at more than 30 miles per second.

Ultraviolet light from the core “energizes” the gas in the nebula, making it glow like a fluorescent bulb. Different elements glow in different colors. That tells astronomers about the original star, and about the process of its demise.

The fate of the Medusa Nebula is shared by all Sun-like stars. So billions of years from now, the Sun will create its own nebula – a colorful bubble blown with its dying breath.

Script by Damond Benningfield