... Like a last gasp of breath, Sun-like stars puff away their outer layers of gas at the end of their lives. This gas floats away into space and forms beautiful and striking clouds, which are called planetary nebulae (although they have nothing to do with planets). ... Yet, astronomers looking at 100 planetary nebulae in the bulging centre of our Galaxy, the Milky Way have found that most of the bipolar planetary nebulae in this region are acting in the same, strange, way. ...