Star observers must have noticed an unusual ring pattern in the sky for years, and it’s called a nebula, which is a cluster of gas and dust in space. Nebulae are often the birthplace of new stars and planetary systems, as the gravitational pull between the particles inside the nebula causes them to collapse and form denser regions. Today, NASA shared a breathtaking image of the famous Ring Nebula (M57) captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
While sharing the photo, NASA explained the Ring Nebula, “a recent map of the expanding nebula’s 3-D structure, based in part on this clear Hubble image, indicates that the nebula is a ring-like like a donut, relatively densely encircling the middle of a (US) soccer ball cloud of glowing gas.” The layer of gas covered in the image represents the outer layers expelled from the dying star, once sun-like, now just a small blip seen in the center. The intense ultraviolet light from the hot central star ionizes the atoms in the nebula.The Ring Nebula is about a light-year in diameter and 2,500 light-years away.
Learn more about the Ring Nebula
Located in the constellation Lyra, the Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula that represents the luminous remnants of a star similar to sun. NASA explains that the best time to observe it is in August and it has an apparent magnitude of 8.8, visible with medium-sized telescopes. Discovered by Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix, a French astronomer in 1779, M57 is positioned in such a way that astronomers on Earth can see the ring directly. The space agency further explains that with the help of high-resolution Hubble images, astronomers have discovered that the shape of the nebula is more complex than initially assumed.
The blue gas at the center of the nebula is actually shaped like a soccer ball when viewed from the top, and it pierces the red, donut-shaped matter. The inner rim of the ring exhibits an intricate structure of dense, dark, irregular air knots, forming spokes resembling a bicycle. These knots and tails have not yet been blown away by the stellar wind.
