Recurring Nova T Pyxidis

Closer inspection by the Hubble Space Telescope, however, reveals that the shells are not smooth at all. In fact, this high-resolution image shows that the shells are actually more than 2, 000 gaseous blobs packed into an area that is 1 light-year across. Resembling shrapnel from a shotgun blast, the blobs may have been produced by the nova explosion, the subsequent expansion of gaseous debris, or collisions between fast-moving and slow- moving gas from several eruptions. False colour has been applied to this image to enhance details in the blobs.