Question: How are nebulas formed

Amy Tyndall answered on 16 Mar 2013:

When a star comes to the end of its life, it basically can’t hold on to its outer layers of gas and dust anymore. So they get blown off into space in the form of a ‘wind’ and get heated up to very high temperatures, which is what creates the different colours we see (although the colours are not what you would see with the naked eye. We artificially add these afterwards to represent different elements in the nebula – e.g. we could make oxygen appear blue, hydrogen red, and nitrogen green).

The wind can sometimes interact with the surrounding space, which is why they appear in all sorts of weird shapes and sizes. The nebulae I look at are formed from TWO stars acting together, and not just one. They tend to form a more ‘butterfly’ or ‘hourglass’ -shaped nebula. All very pretty!