Looking down a barrel of gas at a doomed star

One of the most famous of all planetary nebulae. A dying star has thrown off some of its outer material thousands of years ago. The nebula is situated 2.000 light years away in the constellation Lyra.

The NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the sharpest view yet of the most famous of all planetary nebulae: the Ring Nebula (M57). In this October 1998 image, the telescope has looked down a barrel of gas cast off by a dying star thousands of years ago. This photo reveals elongated dark clumps of material embedded in the gas at the edge of the nebula; the dying central star floating in a blue haze of hot gas. The nebula is about a light-year in diameter and is located some 2, 000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lyra.