The rise and rapid fall of the Stingray Nebula

Astronomy tends to have a timeless feel to it. Stars take millions of years to be born, a given galaxy will look exactly the same today as it did at the height of the Maya empire, even the constellations in the sky look pretty much the same as they did when Indigenous Australians started weaving their stories about them so very long ago in human terms.

Sometimes, though, things happen on a much faster timescale. The Stingray Nebula can lay claim to two such rapid events: It probably only starte...