When a star like our sun runs out of fuel and begins to die, violent stellar winds rip it to shreds, blasting massive quantities of stellar matter into space. The result is a planetary nebula, a vast bubble of expanding gas that represents a star's final, beautiful, farewell.

As imaged by the ESO's Very Large Telescope, this particularly exquisite planetary nebula is called ESO 378-1 and very little was known about the object until the powerful telescope located in northern Chile zoomed in.

Also known as the Southern Owl Nebula, this planetary nebula is nearly 4 light-years wide and joins its visual cousin, the Owl Nebula, in the northern constellation of Hydra (The Female Water Snake).

Planetary nebulae are fairly short-lived stellar phenomena. As the star, with a mass less than 8 times that of our sun, starts to die, a huge envelope of gas expands into interstellar space. The core of the star remains in the center of the planetary nebula, powerful ultraviolet light ionizing the gas, causing it to glow.

When the nebula fades away, a white dwarf star will remain behind, glowing and slowly cooling down for billions of years, long after the nebula is gone.

NASA's New Horizons mission didn't come cheap. Between 2001 and 2017, the agency will pump nearly $720 million into the historic journey to Pluto, leaving many to wonder why the spacecraft isn't taking up residence at the dwarf planet -- why expend so much time and money for a flyby?

A helicopter from the U.S. Coast Guard's Traverse City, Mich. station was on a routine patrol mission over northern Lake Michigan Friday, when crew members noticed a chilling sight.

Beneath the crystal clear waters of the lake -- now free of ice, but still just above freezing -- they could see the wreckage of numerous lost ships on the lake bottom. They took a series of photos and posted them to the station's Facebook page, and invited local historical buffs to help them identify the wrecks.

One of the wrecks turned out to be a century and a half old. The James McBride, a 121-foot brig was launched on April Fools Day 1848. On Oct. 19, 1857, the ship was transporting a cargo of wood from the Manitou Islands to Chicago, when she encountered a gale and was driven aground, and then abandoned as a total loss.

When clouds of gas collide in space, they typically slow down or stop moving completely. Dark matter, on the other hand, continues to glide harmlessly through other other dark matter.