Facts about Caldwell 22

 A Blue Snowball from across the universe. 

Caldwell 22, also cataloged as NGC 7662 and nicknamed Blue Snowball Nebula, is located about 2,500 light - years from Earth.

It represents a stage in evolution that stars like our Sun undergo when they run out of fuel.

Stars are nuclear furnaces that spend most of their lives fusing hydrogen into helium. Massive stars have fiery fates, exploding as supernovae, but medium - mass stars like the Sun swell to become red giants as they exhaust their fuel.