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FLO4623514: Paladins, warriors of Charlemagne's court, saying their last goodbyes to their bridesmaids in the gallery of the Palace of Bourgtheroude, Normandy. Handcoloured copperplate engraving by Verico after Alessandro Sanquirico from Giulio Ferrario's Ancient and Modern Costumes of all the Peoples of the World, 1844. / Bridgeman Images
PIX4623552: Planetary nebula NGC 7027 in the Swan/HST - This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of planetary nebula NGC 7027 shows remarkable new details of the process by which a star like the Sun dies. New features include: faint, blue, concentric shells surrounding the nebula; an extensive network of red dust clouds throughout the bright inner region; and the hot central white dwarf, visible as a white dot at the center. The nebula is a record of the star's final death throes. Initially the ejection of the star's outer layers, when it was at its red giant stage of evolution, occurred at a low rate and was spherical. The Hubble photo reveals that the initial ejections occurred episodically to produce the concentric shells. This culminated in a vigorous ejection of all of the remaining outer layers, which produced the bright inner regions. At this later stage the ejection was non - spherical, and dense clouds of dust condensed from the ejected material. NGC 7027 is located about 3,000 light - years from Earth in the direction of the summer constellation Cygnus. When a star like the Sun nears the end of its life, it expands to more than 50 times its original diameter, becoming a red giant star. Then its outer layers are ejected into space, exposing the small, extremely hot core of the star, which cools off to become a white dwarf. Although stars like the Sun can live for up to 10 billion years before becoming a red giant and ejecting a nebula, the actual ejection process takes only a few thousand years. The NGC 7027 photograph is a composite of two Hubble images, taken in visible and infrared light, and is shown in “” pseudo - color. / Bridgeman Images
FLO4623556: Mustard plant with cochineal beetles, jackfruit tree, water buffalo and orangutan. Handcoloured copperplate drawn and engraved by Andrea Bernieri after Francois Solvyns from Giulio Ferrario's Ancient and Modern Costumes of all the Peoples of the World, Florence, Italy, 1844., Bernieri, Andrea (1792-1849) / Bridgeman Images
PIX4623608: Planetary nebula Helix (NGC 7293) in Aquarius - Planetary nebula Helix (NGC 7293) - This nebula is located 690 years - light from Earth. Image obtained by Siding Spring's 3.9m telescope This faint object is the nearest planetary nebula to the Sun and on deep photographs has a diameter of about half a degree - - the same apparent size as the Sun in the sky. The AAT colour picture shows the brighter parts of the nebula, revealing various ionization levels within the shell of matter ejected from the central star. This picture was made without unsharp masking. Unsharp masking emphasises the smallest of the radial blobs inside the red shell, which are about 150 astronomical units across (150 times the Earth - Sun distance). These radial streaks give this beautiful object its alternative name, the Sunflower Nebula. The Helix is about 400 light years away, or about 100 times more distant than the nearest stars / Bridgeman Images
PIX4623669: Planetary nebula Helix (NGC 7293) in Aquarius - Planetary nebula Helix (NGC 7293) - The planetary nebula of Helice, located in Aquarius, is one of the closest to Earth (about 690 years - light) and is also one of the most extended; its apparent diameter is about half of the full moon. Image made with the 1.5m Danish telescope of La Silla in Chile in 2009. Helix is our closest planetary nebula at about 690 light years distance. Image taken with the ESO/Danish 1.5m telescope at La Silla observatory in Chile / Bridgeman Images
PIX4623677: Planetary nebula IC 418 dans le Lievre/HST - IC 418: The “” Spirograph” Nebula Glowing like a multi - faceted jewel, the planetary nebula IC 418 lies about 2,000 light - years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lepus. This photograph is from Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope, obtained with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. A planetary nebula represents the final stage in the evolution of a star similar to our Sun. The star at the center of IC 418 was a red giant a few thousand years ago, but then ejected its outer layers into space to form the nebula, which has now expanded to a diameter of about 0.1 light - year. The stellar remnant at the center is the hot core of the red giant, from which ultraviolet radiation floods out into the surrounding gas, causing it to fluoresce. Over the next several thousand years, the nebula will gradually disperse into space, and then the star will cool and fade away for billions of years as a white dwarf. Our own Sun is expected to undergo a similar fate, but fortunately this will not occur until some 5 billion years from now. The Hubble image of IC 418 is shown in a false - color representation, based on Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 exposures taken in February and September, 1999 through filters that isolate light from various chemical elements. Red shows emission from ionized nitrogen (the coolest gas in the nebula, located furthest from the hot nucleus), green shows emission from hydrogen, and blue traces the emission from ionized oxygen (the hottest gas, closest to the central star) / Bridgeman Images
FLO4623835: Interior of the Thirumalai Nayak Palace, ancient residence of Raja Raja Thirumalai sowri at Madurai, India. Handcoloured copperplate drawn and engraved by Andrea Bernieri from Giulio Ferrario's Ancient and Modern Costumes of all the Peoples of the World, Florence, Italy, 1844. / Bridgeman Images
FLO4623862: Carved pillars in the Thirumalai Nayak Palace, ancient residence of Raja Raja Thirumalai sowri at Madurai, India. Copperplate drawn and engraved by Andrea Bernieri from Giulio Ferrario's Ancient and Modern Costumes of all the Peoples of the World, Florence, Italy, 1844. / Bridgeman Images
FLO4623901: Indian musicians with musical instruments. Man playing bell and conch shell, sankh and ghanta, bansi flutist, surmandal player, dholak drummer, kartal cymbalist, dhak drummer, and jagajhampa drummer. Handcoloured copperplate drawn and engraved by Andrea Bernieri after Francois Solvyns from Giulio Ferrario's Ancient and Modern Costumes of all the Peoples of the World, Florence, Italy, 1844., Bernieri, Andrea (1792-1849) / Bridgeman Images
FLO4623910: Nautch or Ramjani girls dancing to music from kuplyans or bin, dhol drums, tabla, and other string and percussion instruments. Handcoloured copperplate drawn and engraved by Andrea Bernieri after Francois Solvyns from Giulio Ferrario's Ancient and Modern Costumes of all the Peoples of the World, Florence, Italy, 1844., Bernieri, Andrea (1792-1849) / Bridgeman Images
PIX4623916: Planetary nebula ESO 166 - 21 dans les Voiles - The faint planetary nebula ESO 166 - 21 - This planetary nebula was discovered in the rich southern constellation of Vela in 1966, which is why it does not have an NGC number. The 'Ack' designation refers to its identification in the catalogue of planetary nebulae edited by Agnes Acker. This beautifully structured delicate sphere of glowing gas is about 2 arc minutes in diameter and is extremely faint. Both these characteristics have contributed to the conspicuous grain 'noise' in the photograph, and attempts to emphasise the faint nebulosity also bring out the many faint stars in this direction, including the markedly blue central star of visual magnitude 18 which is seen here sandwiched between two other, brighter stars / Bridgeman Images
FLO4624361: Australian aborigines with body painting and scarification. Woman Worogan from Sydney area, man with body painting Y-Erran-Gou-La-Ga, and head of man with moustache. Handcoloured copperplate engraved by Francesco Rosaspina from Giulio Ferrario's Ancient and Modern Costumes of all the Peoples of the World, Florence, Italy, 1844. / Bridgeman Images
FLO4624448: King Polaho drinking kava in a longhouse, Tonga (Friendly Islands). Handcoloured copperplate engraved by Sasso after John Webber from Giulio Ferrario's Ancient and Modern Costumes of all the Peoples of the World, Florence, Italy, 1844., Sasso, Giovanni Antonio (19th century) / Bridgeman Images
FLO4624507: Natives of Easter Island or Rapa Nui. Man and woman in hats with long pierced ear lobes. Couple rowing an outrigger canoe or vaka. Handcoloured copperplate engraved by Sasso after William Hodges from Giulio Ferrario's Ancient and Modern Costumes of all the Peoples of the World, Florence, Italy, 1844. / Bridgeman Images
FLO4624572: Interior of a Morai or sacred cemetery on Kauai, Hawaii, Atooi. Interior of a long house or mana in the heiau (morai) at Waimea with carved representations of the gods. Handcoloured copperplate engraved by Bernieri after John Webber from Giulio Ferrario's Ancient and Modern Costumes of all the Peoples of the World, Florence, Italy, 1844. / Bridgeman Images